Great Films that aren't holding up well.

You can also include "great" films that aren't holding up because people finally realized they are trash.

Cough Crash.

American Beauty was never a great film, so of course it's not holding up well today. All the angsty teenage emos and college age hipsters who thought it was the edgiest and deepest movie ever made finally grew up and are now seeing what a piece of pretentious, shallow garbage it was.

The fact that Kevin Spacey has been discredited isn't helping it much, either.

Not a 'Great Film' but I caught The Immortals from 2011 on TV the other night and the CGI is terrible.

Neither Kramer Vs Kramer or Out Of Africa have weathered well (not sure they were that good anyway). Braveheart was equally undeserving of a Best Picture Oscar.

"Knocked Up" was the funniest shit ever to me when it came out and was widely acclaimed by critics. I watched it a couple months ago and it's unfunny (except for a delightful Kristen Wiig cameo) and shrill. I wanted to slap both Rogen and Heigl's characters the whole time.

"some critically acclaimed films of modern cinema" and "great films" are categories that do not contain American Beauty.

A really great film never ages. Oscar Winner does not equal "great film", just sometimes.

I think a lot of the so-called psychological thrillers from the past are not holding up well because of how naive we were. What we thought back then was complex and multi-layered writing filled with clever twists and turns was really just convolution and ridiculous deus ex machinas. I just saw Marathon Man and couldn't believe how utterly asinine and unrealistic it was, yet when I first saw it I thought it was so brilliant and masterful. Ditto the Manchurian Candidate. I remember watching it again a few years ago and thinking, "Wait...this is the most ridiculous and convoluted thing I have ever seen! What was I thinking?"

Also, a lot of classic film noirs for the same reason. I love film noir but damn, if the plots weren't a convoluted and contrived mess, including DOA, Vertigo and Sorry, Wrong Number. I love how in Sorry, Wrong Number, the flashbacks have flashbacks. Vertigo is even worse, especially the ending.

Lastly, movies that set a new bar or invented tropes and archetypes to such an extent that they were copied to hell and back no longer hold up well because they come across as cliche and old hat. I remember one time at the IMDB someone complaining about how cliche The Poseidon Adventure was and I was like, "Bitch, that was the movie that invented them!"

[quote]Ditto the Manchurian Candidate. I remember watching it again a few years ago and thinking, "Wait...this is the most ridiculous and convoluted thing I have ever seen! What was I thinking?"

I think the original 'Manchurian Candidate' is still pretty effective.

Particularly Angela Lansbury's Oscar-nominated performance.

Gone With the Fucking Wind.

[quote]…American Beauty …It hasn't connected with with today's millennials and younger people like one would expect.

I question who on earth would have expected that.

[quote]All the angsty teenage emos and college age hipsters who thought it was the edgiest and deepest movie ever made…

This. Never. Happened.

Three Colors trilogy

Eraserhead.

The Last Temptation of Christ

I am waiting for a nomination that is indeed a great movie but does not hold up. GWTW is a great movie and it holds up just fine.

Kevin Spacey is not discredited. Not at all. American Beauty holds up for me.

Honestly, who are you idiots who think a man is discredited because he made a pass? Is the whole country nothing but church ladies?

The China Syndrome

All the President’s Men

Midnight Cowpie

[quote]Honestly, who are you idiots who think a man is discredited because he made a pass?

A pass?

Spacey is under investigation for sexual assault.

I watched Gone With The Wind the other night, I loved every minute.

I saw Chicago with Zeta Jones, I thought it was perfect.

I think The Manchurian Candidate still holds up, especially Dame Angela Lansbury's performance, which is one of her finest on film.

A film that is considered a classic but chore to get through: Paddy Chayefsky's Marty. Good lord, I don't know how that film not only swept the Oscars, but won a fucking Palme D'or!

On the other hand, Network still feels prescient and vibrant

R16 Midnight Cowboy holds up fine and is great. Your other 2 were not great.

Much of the stuff made after 1980 is pure crap IMHO, there are occasional exceptions, but it's mostly very forgettable garbage. "Bernie" and "Babette's Feast" are 2 examples that are exceptions made since 1980.

Oh, you

Agreed, R20. Same can be said for The Hospital and The Americanization of Emily, too. Some of Chayefsky's finest writing can be found in those three films.

[quote]I think The Manchurian Candidate still holds up, especially Dame Angela Lansbury's performance, which is one of her finest on film.

Yes, I agree.

A film that has held up well is [BOLD] The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover [/BOLD] and I'm still amazed how compelling [BOLD] The Queen [/BOLD] is also.

Both from before Helen Mirren started to make crap for the paycheck obviously.

I'm disappointed at this thread. Thought DLers would be more versed in world cinema. You act like there's only American movies to choose from. There have been many great movies since the 80s, just check the Cannes and Berlin Festivals.

American Beauty did not hold up to the hype as I rewatched it recently. I was prompted to watch it by Lessons from a Screenplay a great Youtube Channel analyzing scripts and I found it to be very cringe worthy.

I still think Six Feet Under is a great show, and was even kind of liking Here and Now (sue me) Allan Ball is a very good writer IMO.

I don’t think R27 understands the OP, as that first paragraph makes no sense to the topic at hand.

The existence of great international cinema made after 1989 has absolutely nothing to do with the question of ‘great films’ that aren’t holding up well...

OP, I'm a millennial and American Beauty was a popular movie in college because

[quote]college age hipsters who thought it was the edgiest and deepest movie ever made

Nailed it.

Of course this was a decade ago, millennial doesn't mean 18.

The Usual Suspects is a bore

[quote]GWTW is a great movie and it holds up just fine.

Of course, you racist old fucks think Gone With the Wind hasn't aged a bit.

It's just like you: Looks decades newer.

I saw The Sand Pebbles as a kid and thought it was fantastic. Watched it again last night on TCM, and I couldn't believe how wooden and lifeless it was.

OK then great movie that hasn't held up well.

[BOLD] 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner' [/BOLD]

Maudlin mediocre performances and only made any headway because of the US racial equality fight. I doubt anyone would voluntarily sit and watch it.

Clueless is still perfect. And The Wizard of Oz is still perfect. Incredible.

Many huge 80s hits like Fatal Attraction seem like Lifetime movies now.

Traffic winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain seems absolutely ridiculous now. Traffic is almost bordering on camp.

Do you mean "Crash" r35? That was widely considered ridiculous at the time, but yes probably even more so now.

Traffic lost to gladiator

[quote]Traffic winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain seems absolutely ridiculous now. Traffic is almost bordering on camp.

So forgettable. Like its name.

Star Wars

[BOLD] Streetcar Named Desire [/BOLD] also hasn't stood the test of time. It just aged and seemingly became irrelevant, It's like a snapshot or a photograph of a very brief forgotten era.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner was not a great movie. Issue flick, campy from the get go.

Disagree r39. I think the original Star Wars and Empire Strike Back strike hold up remarkably well, still great fun romps. Easy to see why it launched an enduring franchise.

Titanic is just beyond awful

Rebel Without A Cause seems ridiculous.

Streetcar Named Desire holds up just fine. Many potential audiences for great movies of the past have lost the ability to watch something great, old, and theatrical. I am a college prof and most students have never seen a black and white movie.

Half of Bob Mitchum’s catalogue.

[quote]Rebel Without A Cause seems ridiculous.

Totally agree with this. And James Dean's overacting is hysterically amateurish. "YOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU'RE KIIIIIIILLING MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Rebel Without A Cause is schizophrenic and has always been great but its not an easy watch.

The Big Lebowski - yuck

James Dean does look like the gay hustler he was in real life in that movie that's for sure. I can't believe people fell for that.

The Big Lebowski is a pleasant cult favorite and was never considered a "great film".

[quote]Streetcar Named Desire holds up just fine.

I agree, because it is based on a great play.

But I do think something is lost with time. Tennessee Williams now comes across more campy than shocking. I would have loved to have been around when his plays first came out -- and to have found them shocking. Same with Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe.

Yeah, Ginny Wolfe kinda owns this thread

Two movies that had critics swooning were Natural Born Killers and Magnolia. Hated them then, hate them even more now. Beyond pretentious.

Have to disagree with R19 . "Marty" may have been a small movie, but it rang true. The scenes where Ernest Borgnine tells his mother he knows he's an ugly man and the scene where Betsy Blair thinks she's been stood up again were gems. Absolutely love this movie.

Natural Born Killers was taken as camp, on its release. Magnolia was never anything but middlebrow oscar bait. ACTING

Is Magnolia the movie with the ham-fisted Tom Cruise acting -- and the ham-fisted Bible motifs?

I thought it was hilariously bad when it saw it.

Chariots of Fire 1981.....boring.

All these years later, it would be less shocking if Mommie Dearest was best pic in 1981

Mommie Dearest is a blast to watch, Chariots of Fire is like watching paint dry - fresh paint.

R52 I actually like [BOLD] 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' [/BOLD] more than any of the James Dean Tennessee Williams adaptations. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than 'camp' soap style drama so it still works.

Have to disagree with several posters above. While GWTW is insanely gorgeous and has outstanding performances and many great moments, the fundamental underlying racism cannot be overlooked and is not palatable. I cannot stand to watch this movie anymore.

I vote for "Taxi Driver".

R59 nails it.

GWTW is a beautiful movie and is very entertaining, but it is so uncomfortably of its time with its racism.

I think only Elia Kazan's film adaptations of Tennessee Williams holds up the best, that includes Streetcar and Baby Doll (the latter isn't as creaky and stagey as the former).

R57 [BOLD] Chariots of Fire [/BOLD] is still remembered because Ian Charleston died of AIDS aged 40 in 1990, It's an OK film, not a great one. More heartbreaking to watch if you were the right age at the time.

No one is talking about fucking "Driving Miss Daisy."

Gentlemen’s Agreement I think has become very dated.

The Haunting. What a boring and unscary movie. I don't know why it's always listed as one of the great horror films.

To each his own. I've got no interest in taking my 2018 political sensitivities to a viewing of GWTW. If anything its narratives of race are a point of EXTRA interest - to think not only of the 1860's but Hollywood in the 30's. And there's Hattie McDaniel's fabulous performance. Why would you take displeasure or put it in the trash, when its really a triumph for McDaniel's? Everything old has some politically incorrect aspects. Sheesh!

Indeed, R67, to each his own. You don’t mind these things. Others do.

Looking at the racism in an old picture holds an important role as a time capsule of the era. I’m always fascinated by that angle.

I first awoke to that as an 80s kid watching ILL reruns with all the sexism toward the ditsy housewife and casual racism toward the hot-headed Cuban.

I’m still amazed they were able to get away with a husband putting his wife over his knee and spanking her like a child.

I appreciate the window to other eras and their ‘sensibilities’ provided by art

I did Baby Doll on stage, r62!

Nobody in that era had the values that we have today. We cant judge an old ass movie as if it was made yesterday, it should be viewed in context. It should be treated like a history book. Trigger warnings, microaggressions and snowflakes did not exist in 1939. If at all, Margaret Mitchell probably truly believed she was being fair and sympathetic making many of the black characters loyal to scarlett the heroine.

For your browsing pleasure, may I present the glory that is shopgoodwill.com:

^^ oops, wrong thread (obviously)

Traffic winning BP over Brokeback Moutain still pisses me off after so many years. While BM has become a classic, the former is not even remembered/mentioned by anyone.

[quote]Margaret Mitchell probably truly believed she was being fair and sympathetic making many of the black characters loyal to scarlett the heroine.

What part of "aren't holding up well" don't you get?

The Happy Negro theme is very dated.

Meant to add that it falls in with [BOLD] Midnight Express [/BOLD] (which has held up brilliantly) on that score as Brad Davis (who was stunning) and also died of AIDS in 1991.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

What R71 said.

I have never been able to watch Gone with the Wind. Even as a kid I didn’t think it was a good movie.

I applied the no snowflake judgment rule to My Man Friday. It sucked anyway. Lombard was shrill, bombastic and completely ruined the film.

[quote]Nobody in that era had the values that we have today.

That is the very essence of "not holding up well."

I'd agree that GWTW is gonna age badly, but it's not a terrible movie.

I disagree, R81. A movie can still have entertaining and historical value and still be outdated socially.

I think the first half of Gone with the Wind is a great, thoroughly entertaining movie. I can get why some can take the racism for what it is -- a reflection of its time. But that doesn't mean it "holds up."

The second half of Gone with the Wind is, and always has been, very inferior. It never help up to the first half.

I always thought the film should have ended with Scarlett waving that dirty turnip at the sunset.

held up, not help up

[quote]That is the very essence of "not holding up well."

Codswallop. It's about drama, fool.

Codswallop has not held up well.

All westerns - anything with John Wayne.

R74 It was Crash not Traffic

Fargo

"A Star is Born"

The film is a disjointed mess. And the "Born in a Trunk" sequence is a vanity piece that railroads what little story was left after the hatchet editing.

Plus, Judy Garland is such a brassy ham. And far too old to play an ingenue.

R88 Nobody ever said that John Wayne ever made a 'Great' or even good film.

Searchers is considered one of the top ten films of all time and Rio Bravo is up there. Such ignorance.

Searchers and Rio Bravo are both good films to watch now.

Ghost. It’s lame. And demeaning to Whoopi, whom I know many of you hate but for whom I have a lot of respect.

Snow White. The animation is GORGEOUS, but there’s hardly any story and the songs are annoying as hell. Bambi, on the other hand, is a forgotten masterpiece overshadowed by the vastly inferior copy The Lion King.

ET. Sorry, but it’s just OK.

Forrest Gump.

Forret Gump stats great than meanders and dumbs down to mediocre. It was like that at its release. Ghose was never a "critically acclaimed films of modern cinema"

Mulholland Drive. I was a huge David Lynch fan back when I was in college. I tried rewatching some of his stuff recently. A lot of his films have held up but I don't think Mulholland Drive holds up. I loved it when I watched it a lot in 2005. But now, it's so apparent that it was a made-for-tv series before it was a movie. It has the worst pacing of any of Lynch's other classics. I've said this before, but I do think Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale (a similarish movie released a year later) has only gotten better with time while Mulholland Drive hasn't aged well.

R96 “Critic Consensus: Ghost offers viewers a poignant romance while blending elements of comedy, horror, and mystery, all adding up to one of the more enduringly watchable hits of its era.”

It does NOT live up to that.

Ha! American Beauty sucked when it came out, always has.

Being annoying, I’ll answer the opposite of the question and say that Kubrick’s movies become greater with every single viewing. He was THE great director.

I loved Mulholland Drive but decided to hate it because Lynch recently said Trump is one of the greatest presidents ever, and he runs a foundation for the TM cult.

R95, you are wrong about Snow White. It's a classic on so many levels besides being the first Disney full length feature. Drama, humor, the plot to murder and replace the Princess Snow White, the rush to kill the witch. The dwarves riding the deer gets me ever single time.

Bambi is a masterpiece, but I found the songs in both of those films a bit too twee.

ET doesn't hold up for me, either.

R101, disagree on Snow White. God, Snow White's voice. That alone is a reason to hate it. There are great elements in it--the queen, the transformation scene, Snow White running into the woods, Snow White biting the apple. But everything else is so rudimentary. Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi improved upon Snow White in every conceivable way.

Stagecoach is another great film with John Wayne

Although, it probably suffers from the GWTW syndrome a bit

R101 Most of what you mentioned is in the original source story. I do agree the end scene with the chasing of the witch is terrifying and suspenseful even as an adult. But most of the movie is a snooze. The animation itself is gorgeous and artful, as is Bambi. The newer Disney movies don’t come close to the gorgeous old animation in my opinion. And I think Fantasia is both of its time and brilliant.

Avatar.

The special effects which were so amazing just don’t pack the same punch anymore.

Cameron’s movies are made for Trump-level comprehension.

Even in movie thread, we have to have Trump allusions? Talk about one-track minds.

well, r107, watching the Trump disaster unfold is more dramatic & suspenseful than anything in the theaters 🍿

Dawson's 50 Load Weekend.

Now, I lose interest around load 17.

[quote]Chariots of Fire 1981.....boring.

Well, what's interesting is that back in 1981 the producers at the time were worried that Chariots of Fire would flop.

It's a slow-paced movie and is basically a quiet reflection on the personal goals of the athletes of the 1920's.

The thing about the film which had the biggest impact was the score by Vangelis -- it won an Oscar and was heard everywhere for years:

You're a Dahling, R18. Coincidentally, I was a winsome coquette of18 at the time.

Tarzan (1999 film)

A Serbian Film tres passé .

Funny. Last year, I did my social psychology presentation on American Beauty. And it got the highest class score. Young people were asking me what that movie was called, where did I stream it from, and commented how they "knew" the protagonists lol.... I would think There's Something About Mary would be aging badly.

Dances with Wolves has not held up well.

R102 per Roger Ebert:

If Walt Disney's “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” had been primarily about Snow White, it might have been forgotten soon after its 1937 premiere, and treasured today only for historical reasons, as the first full-length animated feature in color. Snow White is, truth to tell, a bit of a bore, not a character who acts but one whose mere existence inspires others to act. The mistake of most of Disney's countless imitators over the years has been to confuse the titles of his movies with their subjects. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is not so much about Snow White or Prince Charming as about the Seven Dwarfs and the evil Queen--and the countless creatures of the forest and the skies, from a bluebird that blushes to a turtle who takes forever to climb up a flight of stairs.

R116, I've read that review. Ebert is wrong. Snow White the character is a bore and so is most of the movie. Sleeping Beauty is 10x better than Snow White in every conceivable way--better music score, the animation, the characters, etc. I do think it's amusing Mae West once said Snow White would have made even more money if she had voiced the main character.

I find all these films "hold up" basically. And I've never understood the criticism of a something being dated. Of course it is. It was made in the past. It reflects what that moment held at that time. How could it not? I think this is a problem in general with how people critique art. They bring the art down to their world, level and understanding of the moment when they see it. Rather than giving over and going to the film's moment. You can still disagree with values in the film, the ideas and such. But I think judging something that was made in the past as being dated--therefore not good--or the thing that keeps it from being good--is a troubling way to look at art.

I’ll buy that

It’s not only that the movies aren’t holding by up, it’s the viewers

R117 Ok. The great award winning journalist Roger Ebert was wrong. What is a film u would hold up in great esteem after almost 100 years?

Mommie Dearest - I loved it when it first came out. Now it seems like a comedy about child abuse.

R100 That's not what David Lynch said exactly. Maybe you can decide to un-hate his films. Maybe not. But he didn't say Trump was a great President either way.

A lot of the late 90s movies didn't age well....As Good As It Gets is another one that won a lot of awards but has now been completely forgotten

The most overrated film of all time is Pulp Fiction. In fact, none of Tarantino's work will stand the test of time.

We need a thread of great films that do hold up well with time, cuz I think Goodfellas would win that one.

R4, Disagree about Out of Africa. Even if you don't like the story, that cinematography with that music keeps it worthwhile.

Many of the beloved eighties comedies haven’t really held up, and not because they’re offensive to modern audiences. The best Mel Brooks fit that bill, and they’re still hilarious.

R121, Ebert named “Crash” the best film of 2005. He was often a great writer, but the guy had his blind spots.

And speaking of another Ebert-beloved film, “Fargo” doesn’t hold up. “The Big Lebowski” feels like the funnier Coen comedy from that era, and they’ve gone a lot deeper in the decades since then. “Fargo” feels like amateur hour next to some of their films since “No Country for Old Men.”

I must have watched FAME a hundred times when I was a kid. I was obsessed with the movie and the music. It was one of those films that was shown continuously back in the early days of HBO.

And then I watched it again recently for the first time in 20 years, and was shocked at how dull and slow it was. I don't feel like it holds up today beyond the 80s music.

Mrs Patarick Campbell’s scat films.

12 mouthfuls used to be shocking .

How quaint.

Sadly there are people who do think "The Big Lebowski" is s great film and quote from it.

Agreed, R8. Lansbury scared the crap out of me in that film. I saw it for the 1st time about 20 years or so ago and it was striking then. Given what we know about Russia's involvement in our election and government, it might be worth a rewatch, even though China was the bad guy. Bought rightwingers is the plot, though, and we've sure got them these days.

R128 Fargo is a superb film! Actress Frances won the Oscar that year some twenty something years ago, and she won it again this year for another film.

Yeah Fargo is excellent, I just rewatched it earlier this year.

Holds up great except that awkward and racist feeling scene with the Asian man.

Pitch Perfect II is not the masterpiece we thought on seventh or eighth viewing.

R133, there’s a lot about “Fargo” that doesn’t work now, and didn’t even work that well in 1996. It’s really condescending toward its characters, too often depends on people being unnecessarily dumb, and the performances are somewhat one-note. Even Frances, despite the Oscar.

It’s not a bad movie, but I doubt the Coen brothers even consider it one of their greatest achievements, considering how their works have developed. (I’d bet that “A Serious Man” is either their favorite or very close to it).

R136 Fargo the movie "works. " they have been making Fargo the television series for a few season now. New plots, characters, and scenarios but what worked in that movie works in the tv series

Fargo holds up just fine. It was entirely too elevated to begin with. It's as good as it ever was. Very good.

I love how people keep saying no one had these values back then (the values of freedom and anti racism and slavery) they're so laughable.

Though I take no issue with watching old movies within the context of the era, criticism of slavey, xenophobia and racism is far from being new, and you can find them in old Chinese, Arabic, Koptic, Greek and Roman texts. Actually in many more languages as well.

How silly do you have to be to believe no one ever questioned a system of slavery when back in the old days anyone could become a slave regardless of skin color? I remember reading a paper on how the indigenous people of the amazon confronted Portuguese Jesuit during the 1600s on slavery using their own rhetoric against it.

This excuse of being a product of its time is BS, not in the sense that it isn't understood within its frame, but in the sense that people always questioned and even fought this system of oppression.

[quote]As Good As It Gets is another one that won a lot of awards but has now been completely forgotten

Exactly.

I shouldn't have lost the Oscar to Helen Hunt that year.

r34, Fatal Attraction only seems like a lifetime movie because its been done to death by that network and cable tv. I mean beaten brought back from the dead, put in a coma, brought back to life again and again and again. The first lady of music, Beyonce, even made a film and stole the entire plot. Glenn Close played that role brilliantly and it is a very engaging thriller. It was also groundbreaking at the time in the 80s. It would have been a truly perfect film if not for the ending where it turns into a horror flick.

Good comedy rarely ages badly. And I disagree with poster who listed Fargo. They made a critically acclaim, hit tv show from it. Everyone still loves Fargo and its become a fav amongst millennials with good taste.

"First lady of music? Beyonce? " I was fuckin Jay when Destinys Child were from Alabama

r125, You know I agree to an extent. PF is entertaining and highly rewatchable but it isn't the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be. Watching characters have dope ass conversations in between excessive violence does not make a masterpiece. Its something missing from the film to cement the story as a whole. I can't quite put my finger on it. Its like its parts are greater than the sum of its whole.

r125, On the same note I think Django Unchained is one of the best films to come out in the past decade, and Jackie Brown is highly underrated.

It's sad that Anne Archer's career didn't go anywhere after "Fatal Attraction".

How the hell did Glenn not win the oscar for Fatal Attraction. Who beat her that year?

Cher, "Moonstruck", R147.

Cher!!

A comedy that hasn't held up is It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Modern audiences don't recognize most of the actors, and without that recognition to put the performances into some sort of context, the movie falls flat.

[quote] I applied the no snowflake judgment rule to My Man Friday.

Couldn't you, at least, get the title right?

What R118 said.

Fatal Attraction is a shit movie. I am kind of shocked to read a few defend it. I was born but not grown at that time but it's crap. What do you mean, except for the end? Yes it's okay as a bad eighties story about a man who cheats on his wife with a psycho. I think Michael Douglas is curiously underated. (He's always got his pants down and he's never aware that his real life whiny douche shows through his on screen weak douche.) Glenn Close has no pathos or chaos to stand on in that movie. It's stylish I guess. Goofy as fuck. All those late eighties movies look the same. It's very lame. What exactly is it supposed to hold up to? Nobody thinks that Fatal Attraction is a good movie, do they? It's not even watchable once the opera comes on. OY. Jesus fuck she's ugly and so is he. Fucking in the sink? I done it better last week and I guarantee a better ASS shot.

The Great Gatsby The World's Greatest Athlete Sometimes a Great Notion Alexander the Great The Greatest Story Ever Told

Gone With The Wind is a great movie, but people with no sense of history, or who revel in folding their arms in judgment, have to reject its art to make themselves feel good. IAMMMW is always a chaotic hilarious trip, in my opinion, but it's a little long for modern attention spans. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming is along th same lines, including several of the same actors, and people now won't get the regional jokes, the character actor cameos, or think the story made sense. Their loss.

Million Dollar Duck. Sandy Duncan should have had a bigger movie career. At least Disney should have used her as much as Dean Jones and Hayley MIlls.

It's a Wonderful LIfe -- hate the scene where Stewart is screaming all over town like a little girl when he realizes he is still alive and recognized by his town. I now prefer to watch "Christmas in Connecticut" around the holidays, which is funnier and has Barbara Stanwyck, the delightful Dennis Morgan, a funny Sydney Greenstreet and the wonderful Cuddles, S.Z. Sakall.

R156 God strike you dead. And Sidney is only spelled with two Ys by Australians, fuckwit.

Well, aren't you special?

It's "Sydney" on IMDB

Great acting! Carrie Coon is phenomenal. Blows all current films through the water. The future is hbo and the like.

R156 my humblest apologies for calling you a fuckwit. You indeed are right, I am wring. I stand humiliated. Note: Still want you dead for what you said about Its A Wonderful Life.

I like Donna Reed in "It's a Wonderful Life" though.

oh, and go fuck yourself.

Many great mentions here. But I think All The President's Men still holds up. I still think it's riveting regardless that I know how it will end. Watching a horrible The Post helped me appreciate it even more. Forrest Gump and Titanic are both laughable to me now. They're seriously almost bad.

R163 And is this directed at everybody? Because fuck yourself with a stalactite.

The whole GWTW debate would seem doomed to go unresolved.

Of course the treatment of African Americans is racist - it’s set in pre- and post- Civil War Georgia. I don’t think Mitchell - as a smart, switched on and educated 1930s American was unaware of this - and in the book - there are many scenes that address attitudes to slavery and racism. But the book and subsequent movie adaptation are skewed towards the rich white folks. Their lives are deemed more interesting.

Years ago, I remember the makers of the old hit UK TV series - Upstairs Downstairs - really wanted to make a series about the lives of servants below stairs. One of them had a grandmother who’s been ‘in service’ - and wanted to tell that story. In the end - they all decided that the drudgery was kinda dull and probably not interesting enough to merit its own story. But if you add the lives and goings on of the upstairs folk - then you had an interesting narrative. It was duplicated with Gosford Park - and then Downton.

It’s always made me wonder if the lack of interest in the black stories going on during GWTW was also similar - just as much based on the dreariness of repetitive working class, low pay jobs that don’t offer much variation. Only in the case of the South at the time - the people doing this work are mostly black.

Not seeing any great, epic stories of the lives of Irish American or other poor immigrant servants who worked in NYC or other Northern cities - unless it’s the classic rags to riches scenario that is so beloved in films. Of course - few black southerners had that opportunity in any way, shape or form.

But I do often wonder if socioeconomic background is just as big a reason their stories aren’t told in more detail?

And - given today’s attitudes - IF Mitchell had given a lot more black character detail and lives - would she now be accused of cultural appropriation? I mean - just how authentic would her takes of those lives be deemed today?

Just don’t think it’s possible to win this.

Great work r166.

Thanks R167 - I’m not American though - and so I feel doomed to be viewing your culture from a position that’s slightly removed - and I worry that anything I think I’ve observed might be Inaccurate becsuse of my own ignorance of day- to-day life and experience in various parts of the US. You can only glean so much fro reading and seeing films.

In a way though - it’s like the argument about Boys in the Band.

When the play came out it was lauded as revolutionary! It was the first time a whole play about a group of openly (mostly) gay men had been mounted. Their interactions and life experiences were seen as unciversal for so many urban gay men - and seeing it up o stage was cathartic. It was extraordinary.

But between the play and the film coming out - stonewall happened. Suddenly the lot of a gay urban make was changing. There were moves to change laws and no longer live as if soaked in shame - but rather - to be proud of who you were!

So suddenly - the lot of the characters in BITB seemed not only ridiculously dated and old hat - but their acceptance of their fate as second class citizens became not just embarrassing - but offensive as well. And both the play and the movie fell out of favour for decades...

Now - you can watch it with some distance and it becomes a perfect little window of social history into the lives of gay urban guys just before it all began to change. And I gotta say - I LOVE it! And I feel the characters still resonate today with many of the people I’ve known over the years.

I wonder how people will look upon GWTW in decades to come - and what course future re-evaluations will take - reflecting as it will the circumstances and attitudes of how society is then...

Of course there was always some sort of resistance and pushback toward slavery and racism.

Its disingenuous to suggest that means it was always the prevailing wisdom held by the majority.

The ebb and flow of the battle shows peaks and valleys at various times and the art of the day is a great mirror showing where the battle rested on the spectrum at that given moment.

Trying to sanitize it or ignore it altogether is a pretty ignorant approach that comes off as hostile toward proper intellectual outlooks.

Shakespeare in Love OWNS this thread.

I recall Boys Don’t Cry being a really moving, great movie. I wonder how it has held up over time, and whether trans people would demand Hillary Swank give back her Oscar for putting transgender rights into the public consciousness.

[quote]In a way though - it’s like the argument about Boys in the Band.

As long as we're talking about Boys in the Band, let's not forget Philadelphia, where Tom Hanks won the best actor Oscar for what was basically an After School Special about AIDS.

[quote] In fact, none of Tarantino's work will stand the test of time.

Jackie Brown was an excellent movie, the rest of Tarrantino's work is garbage.

All The President's Men was a bore back then and still is now.

The Big Lebowsky, I always thought it was awful. The only interesting scenes were when John Goodman was on screen.

[quote]This. Never. Happened.

It did happen, Grandpa. Who do you think embraced American Beauty and turned Kevin Spacey into a cult figure because of that movie? Who do you think identified with the emo teenaged characters? Middle aged Boomers? GenXers, most who were in their early 30s? Please. It's such a quintessential emo and hipster film it makes it onto hipster lists regularly.

R171, it was also about the dead-end lives of young people in rural America.

I grew up not so far removed from that existence, and I found the film on that count quite authentic.

And in the age of Deplorables, I now find it prescient.

There is a documentary about Brandon Teena that is even better, but even more grim.

Contested definition of 'great' but some of those swords & superhero epics from the '00s aren't ageing well due to the dated S/FX and po-faced formulaic approach, which in the post-GOT and DEADPOOL world is glaring. I'm thinking particularly of 300, Raimi's SPIDERMAN movies, FANTASTIC FOUR (2005), LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING (still impressive in some ways as the preceding films, but nope at those janky ghosts).

There are exceptions of course, like the still-sleek X-MEN 2 and the first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film which both prove that S/FX can date well when used sparingly and within a tight and exciting story.

Silence of the Lambs

Truth or Dare

Blow Up. In the first years after it came out in 1967, David Hemmings' London fashion photographer character was seen as the ne plus ultra of cool. But 20 years later, he seemed like a narcissistic asshole who treated every single woman like shit, and the women seemed like passive, submissive morons who let him get away with it.

"American Beauty" was never that good. Dataloungers absolutely love it because the Annette Bening reminds them of their own mothers, which is the same reason they love "Ordinary People" so much. They imagine themselves being the Kevin Spacey character telling Annette Bening off, which is really imagining themselves at 16 telling their mothers off for being uptight and joyless.

I think it's hilarious this week there have been all these pieces celebrating what a great work of art "The Dark Knight" was, when it had all those sophomoric set pieces like the ordinary Gotham citizens and the prisoners having to decide who would blow up whose boat first . It really wasn't that good--the only bit that stands out as memorable is the trick Heath Ledger plays with the pencil.

I was going to say I'd like to see Sunset Boulevard done with a little more subtlety and nuance but now I think about it, Holden was and Swanson played her like she should have been played... Norma was mad for the entire film... it didn't descend upon her, it just intensified. There could be no self reflection or self awareness... Norma wasn't in on the joke... she was too far gone and so there's no real need to do it again.

[quote] But I do often wonder if socioeconomic background is just as big a reason their stories aren’t told in more detail?

Who wants to hear about the dreary lives of poor people?

You can make films people will want to see about slaves or the poor but only if the material is very horrific--either showing real-life cruelty in extremis (like 12 Years a Slave) or inflicted by terrible violence (like Once Upon a Time in America). But toherwise people go to the movies mostly for fantasy, so stories about the wealthy always sell well.

Almost all comedies tend to date very badly--every generation has its own idea of what funny was. My parents (Silent Generation) loved Martin & Lewis, and my much older brother (tail end of the Baby Boomers) loved "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World": I was utterly baffled by all of those films and found them unfunny (well, except of course for that one great minute of Barrie Chase dancing with Dick Shawn). The only thing we agreed on was Mel Brooks--but now I find young people just don't find "Young Frankenstein" as funny as my generation did.

I think the only exceptions are some of the very best slapstick (like Buster Keaton) and the very best screwballs (like "Bringing Up Baby")--those seem to find audiences in every generation when people see them.

"Topical" films don't age very well: "Gentlemen's Agreement," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?", "The Defiant Ones," "Kramer vs. Kramer," and basically anything Jane Fonda made in the late 70s ("Electric Horseman," "Coming Home," etc.)

A few exceptions: "An Unmarried Woman" (genuinely still moving), "Sounder" (ditto, plus a great family film), and "The China Syndrome" (genuinely suspenseful and further redeemed by Jack Lemmon's excellent performance--probably his best in drama).

Judging works from the past for not having the same values as we hold in the "enlightened" present is known as "presentism."

Titanic and Forest Gump and Bubba Gumps were NEVER good.

OUT OF AFRICA was one of the biggest BUTT CRUSHERS of all time! I thought it would never end!

r181 I do not like Dark Knight. I know I am in the minority. It is was one the most depressing movies I have ever seen. I enjoyed it when it came out theaters, because it was nothing like any "superhero" movie I had ever seen, yeah and heath ledger. But that movie is morbid and fucking depressing. Schindler's List brings me more joy as far as the movie watching experience.

R186 I went to Bubba Gump’s restaurant one time with coworkers around 2014. I had no idea what I was in for. I had seen the movie once, when it came out while I was a teenager. Every time the waiter came by he quizzed us about obscure Forrest Gump trivia and tried to shame me for knowing less about some lame movie that came out when I was a high school sophomore. I would never go back there and I have no idea how that restaurant became a chain or how it still exists.

[quote] You barely hear anyone discuss it anymore. It hasn't connected with today's millennials and younger people like one would expect.

Did you mean: The Matrix?

"In & Out" does not hold up at all.

r191, anyone born after 2004 is still in middle school. What is your point?

R192, I remember In and Out being acclaimed at the time of its release and I did find it funny at the time but it's a movie I rarely hear mentioned anymore. Wonder why that is.

Any Coen brothers movie.

The Matrix still holds up very well and is known by pretty much everyone at least in their late teens. There would be no Inception, Dark Knight, and other countless action or sci-fi films without the Matrix. Show the Wachoswski Sisters some respect.

Snow White has aged well, but the lead character was shrill and boring then and still is. Even as a kid, I knew it was all about the evil queen. Now, there was a layered, complex, and interesting character. Has any adaptation of that story even tried making the character of Snow White semi-interesting. I remember the one with Sigourney Weaver made her a little bratty, which just made us side with the evil queen even more.

American Beauty would be a masterpiece if not for that cheesy, pretentious floating bag scene. It feels like it came out of a completely different movie. I think the rest of it is a hoot and Annette Bening is brilliant.

What about the movies that were more or less panned when they were first released, but have become more esteemed over the years? It seems like most dark comedies flop when released. Heathers, To Die For, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Jawbreaker, and Death Becomes Her have all gone on to become huge cult films enjoyed by tons of people these days, but they were literally spit on at the time of release. I wonder why that is? Ahead of their time?

I know that CGI is occasionally redone but have they ever re-cut/re-scored an older movie to make it more relevant? and did it work?

R179 so it wasn't holding up well in the 80's?

Dawson's Fifty Load Weekend. It just doesn't hold up against The Other Side of Aspen.

Saving Private Ryan. The opening scene was spectacularly tragic and difficult to watch for the effective realism. The rest of the film bored me to tears. At the end, I didn't care if he was found or not.

Schlindler’s List is a great film. Other Spielberg movies feel to me like they were made on a shock-and-wonder Ford assembly line.

Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for The Blind Side only in 2010 but it feels like a million years ago. That film also had a nomination for Best Picture that year. But probably it was never great.

Gravity had an insane amount of critical acclaim for a movie about Bullock falling from space in a bikini and landing on a tripical paradise.

Part of me feels sorry for the people who've had movies ruined by political correctness. But then, even I can't really laugh at "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" any more.

To Die for got great reviews at the time of its release, so did Heathers I think. I can't believe to Die For is being liked by people today?

Heathers is funny, but its homophobic content really makes me uneasy.

r191 The Matrix is still a very good movie worthy of it's praise. It changed Western cinematography and had a unique story line. I would call it great in the sense that the got so much right. I saw it in the gym a few weeks ago after probably 8 years and forgot how badass The Matrix is.

Heathers homophobic? It's making fun of homophobes. You do know a character can call someone a "fag" or "cocksucker" in a movie/play/TV show and it doesn't mean the authors are advocating for homophobia.

Philosophically, The Matrix tells a Gnostic story and subversively it presented a psychedelic interpretation of reality, from the pills to the visuals of the Matrix to the Gnostic-psychedelic perceptions. I don’t know whether that catalyzed what is happening in science and society or coincidentally predicted it, but it’s pretty fascinating. Ayahuasca and ibogaine, shamanism and Gnostic philosophy were not well known when The Matrix came out and now they’re fairly mainstreamZ

R205 It's easy to watch when you realise that it's never the homecoming queens who shoot up schools. It's always the loner freaks. The next time a popular, beautiful girl kills her classmates, maybe then.

Who was likely bullied by the homecoming queen

Um.... what about The Shape of Water?

Has Slumdog help up. Its about to be 10 years. Maybe we truly are entering some new void where too much media has been produced.

The critically acclaimed fourteenth Spider-Man reboot sequel doesn’t quite hold up to the critically acclaimed fifth Spider-Man pre-sequel prequel, part B.

I've wondered about Slum Dog Millionaire myself, R214. Anyone?

R214, R216. Slumdog Millionaire doesn't qualify. It was never great to begin with. (Despite it winning the fuckin' Oscar).

Aww c'mon, R217, that was a great movie. Loved it from beginning to bollywood end.

Heathers holds up. If it’s more disturbing now, then consider it foreboding, but it’s still a strong film.

As is To Die For.

Last tango in Paris.

I've mentioned this on other threads and I think many agreed with me: Silence of the Lambs. Especially Jodie's performance. I thought she was tremendous when I first saw it. Now all I notice are her mannerisms. Unwatchable.

R220, Last Tango is a very good film, not a great one. I still don't get how Pauline Kael thought it was "erotic" though. It's one of the coldest, most unsexy films I've seen.

American Beauty was a more mainstream version of a Todd Solondz film.

Last Tango communicates need and depression unlike any other film.

Streetcar remains haunting

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was starchy even then---Stanley Kramer filsm tended to be a bit heavy handed that way. Sidney Lumet was much better at doing films about issues or headlines

Dr. Strangelove remains relevant and watchable. Ditto Manchurian candidate---Lansbury makes the film.

Schindler's List is near great--Spielberg has always tended toward formula and his early filsm were basically about being a lonely kid growing up in the suburbs.

However groundbreaking "Blow Up" was in the 60s, it's tragically dated now. The mimes cemented that.

[quote]Shakespeare in Love OWNS this thread.

Agreed. It was overrated.

But in those days Miramax and Weinstein were very good at Oscar campaigning.

Many Oscar voters now regret giving 'Shakespeare in Love' so many Oscars.

Gwyneth Paltrow is very luck she won Best Actress, because most Academy voters would give it to Cate Blanchett for "Elizabeth" if they could do it again.

All the 1950s & 60s films that portrayed troublesome ,rebellious teenagers & the criminal perils they posed to society.

Rebel Without a Cause

Blackboard Jungle

To Sir, With Love

West Side Story

So ridiculously tame by comparison to the actual criminal teenaged animals running around in today's societies.

Ant- Man. Guardians of the Galaxy. Black Panther. Those films were bullshit!

Plus the “high schoolers” looked like thirty year olds in R226 post.

THE GRADUATE and BONNIE AND CLYDE scream that they were released in 1967.

THE LOST WEEKEND doesn't hold up, neither does GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT

SUNSET BOULEVARD is a bit too campy, but it is watchable in a guilty pleasure type of way

ON THE WATERFRONT, MARTY, CATERED AFFAIR and WEST SIDE STORY are very good films, but one has to under the culture of the late 1940s and early 1950s to understand why they are classic

I agree with r219 that Heathers is disturbing - and more disturbing now. The cow-tipping scene in particular.

The problem is ... the internet allowed idiots to be heard ... and this thread is a living example. Some of you have no fucking clue about what you are talking about.

Thank you R7. I thought I was the only person in the world who thinks Vertigo is the most overrated piece of crap ever made.

[quote]To each his own. I've got no interest in taking my 2018 political sensitivities to a viewing of GWTW. If anything its narratives of race are a point of EXTRA interest - to think not only of the 1860's but Hollywood in the 30's. And there's Hattie McDaniel's fabulous performance. Why would you take displeasure or put it in the trash, when its really a triumph for McDaniel's?

Hattie McDaniel absolutely walks away with the film.

And since the film takes place during the Civil War era in Georgia....OF COURSE the story recounts the racism of the era.

Are people really so unsophisticated that they can't see beyond their own 2018 sensibilities and put the film in context?

R208 my contention wasn't that The Matrix is a poor film, or any less accomplished in retrospect.

I was simply pointing out that kids & teens today (say, under-18s) generally speaking have not seen the films or in some cases even heard of them, which is strange to consider given its monumental impact. This year I have spoken to 14-15 year olds who don't recognise the name or the iconic imagery (stopping bullets etc.).

When you remember what a cultural behemoth it was just 15 years ago, it's scary. Remember Matrix Online? And all the parodies? And the Conventions held in its honor?

[quote]Blow Up. In the first years after it came out in 1967, David Hemmings' London fashion photographer character was seen as the ne plus ultra of cool. But 20 years later, he seemed like a narcissistic asshole who treated every single woman like shit...

If people thought his character was cool, then they were stupid as hell because the point of the murder mystery was to expose him as the pretentious, narcissistic ass that he was. He thought because he was a hot shot fashion photographer, he could use his camera to solve a murder mystery. He couldn't, and by the next morning totally loses his arrogance and narcissism.

He treats the models like shit because he's angry and resentful at being a trendy fashion photographer. He thinks it's beneath him, that he should be doing artsy fartsy, gritty social realist photos of homeless people, the poor, etc. So he takes his aggressions out on the girls as an expression of his disgust at the whole scene.

The point is that it shouldn't have taken anyone 20 years to realize that he was a narcissistic who treated women like shit. They should've been realized in the first half hour of the film.

The Artist - Won 5 Oscars including Best Picture and has been completely forgotten and it hasn't even been 10 years since it was released

[quote]Thank you [R7]. I thought I was the only person in the world who thinks Vertigo is the most overrated piece of crap ever made.

Oh, no, R232. You're not alone. Believe me. Especially when some film institute decided to name it the best movie of all time.

Story wise, it's Hitchcock's worst film in every respect. His movie bombs (Topaz, Marnie, Torn Curtain) are bad in that they were boring, but Vertigo's screenplay was idiotic and intellectually insulting, filled with cheats and plot holes. The movie also revealed Hitchcock's psychotic-like hatred for and sick obsession with blonde women. Note that "Judy" never killed anyone and was just a patsy for the real murderer, but is killed off in the end to meet the Hays Code (which required an evil person to pay for their sins by dying). Meanwhile, the real murderer (the man who plotted the entire murder and shoved his wife off the tower) is never referenced and gets away with his crime.

Also, Hitchcock cribbed the entire bell tower set and sequence from The Stranger. Hitchcock had a long, established history of cribbing shots from lesser known films and B movies, but this was the closest he ever came to plagiarism. Orson Welles reportedly hated Vertigo, and I suspect that Hitchcock ripping him off and getting so much credit for having shot those "iconic" bell tower scenes is the reason why.

The Departed

[quote]It's a Wonderful LIfe -- hate the scene where Stewart is screaming all over town like a little girl when he realizes he is still alive and recognized by his town.

What's particularly adorable about that scene is that he's gushing about how wonderful his life is, when he was still facing embezzlement charges and prison time. Or that the movie tries to confuse everyone into thinking that because the town raised money for him, Mr. Potter was just going to drop his plot to screw him over.

In any event, thanks for mentioning this movie. It's one of the most overrated pieces of garbage ever made, and a testament to how easily brainwashed people are today. This movie not only bombed at the box office, it was derided for decades when it used to play ad nauseum on TV during the holiday season. It was never considered a holiday classic; holiday classics were Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas. Plus, it was The Best Years of Our Lives that was seen as the classic film of 1946. That was the film that dared put an actual amputee onscreen.

All it took was NBC running the film annually every Thanksgiving to be seen as the quintessential "heartwarming holiday classic." Even frightening is that people don't see how sinister the message of the film is. George is suicidal because he unwillingly sacrificed his entire life to help people achieve their life goals. (Remember, he didn't go to school because his brother screwed him over on a deal they had.) So, in other words, he let go of his dreams so that everyone else could achieve the dreams he so desperately wanted to attain for himself. But the audience is supposed to see this level of self-sacrifice as a positive, somehow?

Mona Lisa Smile

R237 Don't forget Black Narcissus, from which film the rest of the bell tower scene was cribbed.

I said modern cinema elder marys. Just kidding. Good discussion. Carry on.

I still love the Matrix,the first one only. I think any superhero movie is not going to hold up in the future with the exception of Batman ( minus the Ben Afflec & Clooney’s version)

There is a giant plot hole in The Wizard of Oz that to me makes the film not hold up. Dorothy puts all her efforts into returning home and is so happy to be there, but the reason she left is still there waiting for her, Miss Gulch's threat to have her dog destroyed. Even at 10 years old, I knew that would be enough to make me run away with my dog, and not come back. Some say Miss Gulch was killed in the storm, but that is not shown.

I would argue that The Matrix IS the most influential film of the past 20 years. I routinely here teenagers say things like "you know were living in a matrix right". From its action choreography to it its existential philosophy what other film has had more influence on not only other films but also pop culture as a whole. Hell, its surveillance theme has come to embody the actual world we are living in today.

CITIZEN KANE. The most overrated film of all time.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, MEET ME IN ST LOUIS & similar.period pieces.so irrelevant today. May as well be filming about ancient Egypt.

[quote]American Beauty would be a masterpiece if not for that cheesy, pretentious floating bag scene. It feels like it came out of a completely different movie.

That’s because it was lifted from the short film Lost Book Found.

[quote]The Matrix still holds up very well and is known by pretty much everyone at least in their late teens. There would be no Inception, Dark Knight, and other countless action or sci-fi films without the Matrix. Show the Wachoswski Sisters some respect.

“Sisters” Lol. As if two women with just one movie under their belts would be handed $60m to make a Joel Silver sci-fi movie.

Yes it’s influential in a stylist sense, but Nolan was already doing his own grim thing by the time the Matrix rolled out. His work and the Wachowskis have nothing to do with one another.

How could OP not know that DLers would say a lot of the suggestions "was never a great film."

The thread title should have been "Acclaimed and popular films that aren't holding up well" just to avoid the inevitable.

The Color of Money. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the same year as dreckish Top Gun was nominated for four. Paul Newman won for best actor in '86, what was probably the weakest year of male contenders during a strong decade.

R244, without that ambiguity, we would never have had this thread.

R246 Meet Me in St Louis is still a delight and it is timeless.

It was a nostalgia piece when it was made in 1944. Why in the world would anyone expect it to be "relevant"?

Anyone saying Sunset Boulevard is overrated has no idea what they are talking about. That movie still resonates today. Madonna probably watched it and said "Oh shit. Is that me??".

I think I am the only person who feels this way, but I absolutely adore Shakespeare in Love. The tone of it is exactly like an actual Shakespeare comedy, but modernized, and it’s one of those rare stories that steals endlessly from and imitates source material successfully. In my opinion. The movie makes me happy. In my opinion, Judi Dench deserves the Oscar she won, and I think Gwyneth (whom I’ve come to dislike as a person, but who I think is a remarkably talented actor) is very, very good in it—as is hammy Ben Affleck. But I do agree that Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth outperformed Gwyneth by leaps and bounds that year. Being fair, I think Blanchett had a far meatier and wider-ranging and weightier character to play, and both Blanchett and Paltrow disappeared into their characters and infused them with charisma, but Paltrow’s performance was perceived as more than it was because the movie is so smart, and Blanchett’s was underrated because it was within the context of a flawed and showy historical film. She really redefined my view of Elizabeth, though, as a strong, naive but incisive young woman.

I'm with r9, Gone With the Wind, is a racist piece of shit. So fuck you Vivien Leigh gay superfans, it's a fossil of a movie. It would never have been made today, thank the gods.

Scarlett (named for the abrasion she created on her mother's left labia) wasn't even pretty.

R252 is Lizsha with a zhe

[quote]I would argue that The Matrix IS the most influential film of the past 20 years.

'The Matrix' is actually borrowed from a 1976 'Doctor Who' story called 'The Deadly Assassin'.

Platoon. THE film of 1986, Best Picture winner, Oliver Stone's "masterpiece".

I just finished watching it; what a mess. Amateurish dialog, poorly phtotgraphed, and loud and noisy, which it seems was used to convey action and mayhem or maybe just to cover up how little was happening. A lot of it looks like it was filmed on a soundstage (even outdoor sequences) and I think the poor lighting choices are what cause this. The main characters, Elias (Willem Dafoe) and Barnes (Tom Berenger) are given cartoony dialogue to emphasize their goodness/badness, though their acting somewhat overcomes it. The most fascinating thing about Charlie Sheen is that 1) he's actually pretty good in this, and 2) how fresh-faced he looks at what was apparently the beginning of his 30-year run down Debauchery Lane.

I saw it in the theater when it first came out and the audience was so solemn, as we were watching an important movie. Some people cried, and I remember news reports that Vietnam Vets were freaking out at screenings. It must have been the noise triggers; it sure wasn't the pedestrian storyline.

I think both Heathers and To Die For have aged beautifully. They might be even more relevant today than they were now. It's funny - I just saw a production of the musical Gypsy and thought the same thing. That show was way ahead of its time and still so relevant today. Is Mama Rose much different than Kris Jenner?

American Beauty and The Fight Club, for me, capture that moment where the post-grunge generation thought they were intellectually sophisticated and truly recognizing some deeper meaning of life in those two po-faced mediocre movies.

I never thought To Die For was a good movie aside from Kidman’s performance. I know she has a lot of haters here, but I think her acting record is as strong as any Hollywood legend’s. Whether her movies are brilliant or awful, she’s almost always the standout.

"Meet Me in St. Louis" is a poor man's "On Moonlight Bay".

R246 knows nothing about cinema.

A lot of wonky logic on this thread. Just say you don't like it.

"On Moonlight Bay" is the poor man's "By the Light of the Silvery Moon".

This old movie will hold up forever.

r264 thinks she's Roger Ebert's ghost

R246, there was a new version of 'The Magnificent Ambersons' in 2002 with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Madeleine Stowe:

American Beauty is our Magnificent Ambersons.

[quote] I think any superhero movie is not going to hold up in the future with the exception of Batman.

R243 I just re-watched X2: UNITED for what must be the thirty or fortieth time now. It has and will continue to age beautifully. There's also the tragic FIRST CLASS, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and the exquisite & haunting LOGAN to consider as classics of the genre with real longevity.

Maid in Manhattan

Mulholland Drive doesn't hold up well???? You must be drunk! It's a fucking masterpiece, and even its more generic-90s-tvdrama parts manage to be creepy and unsettling.

[quote] "On Moonlight Bay" is the poor man's "By the Light of the Silvery Moon".

Goddamn it. Now I've got Al Jolson songs running through my head and it's in for the night. That fucking whistling is gonna drive me nuts.

R259 indeed, PLATOON was a mess and THE DEER HUNTER a bore. The only truly great 'Nam film is THE THIN RED LINE.

Hell, THE THIN RED LINE deleted scenes alone are better than many Oscar-winning final cuts. It does stay close to the wonderful book, which helps.

Thank you r254. GP is insufferable in real life but that movie was perfectly cast with a great story and soundtrack and a witty script.

R276 I dunno! It’s a mystery!

10 Ways To Lose A Guy isn't as great as I remembered.

Really r275? The Thin Red Line was about the Pacific Theatre of World War Two.

Run along, lover and let the grownups talk.

[quote]Platoon. THE film of 1986, Best Picture winner, Oliver Stone's "masterpiece".

Yes. OMG. I couldn't believe how cheesy it was. Nothing about it felt realistic (I kept shaking my head the entire time), yet it's considered a classic? Full Metal Jacket, now there's a masterpiece.

Harold and fucking Maude.

[quote]'The Matrix' is actually borrowed from a 1976 'Doctor Who' story called 'The Deadly Assassin'.

It's a ripoff of many IPs, most infamously, the graphic novel The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison. Many of the key scenes of The Matrix are shot by shot copies of panels from the novel.

[quote]There is a giant plot hole in The Wizard of Oz that to me makes the film not hold up. Dorothy puts all her efforts into returning home and is so happy to be there, but the reason she left is still there waiting for her, Miss Gulch's threat to have her dog destroyed.

That's not why she left. She left because she hated how drab and gray Kansas was. That's what the song, "Over the Rainbow" was about.

I know Dreamgirls was never considered a masterpiece but it was critically lauded as a musical and i think broke recordS for the number of Academy Awards it received. I saw it a cable a few months a boy was the plot thin, and those songs are cheesy as fuck. THATS the best they could do to evoke Motown. The costumes and actors are beautiful, and the scenes are nicely filmed but the characters seem to have no real depth. Effie's musical number is mind blowing but theres nothing in the story to suggest why would she would be such a bitch and deny letting her kid have a father. Also, Beyonce's deena jones is painted as too nice and nothing suggest that she would have the balls to transform into the take charge diva she morphs into in the last act of the film.

Academy Award nominations*^^^^

"Valley of the Dolls"

I love Dreamgirls, but yes, you are fair and accurate in your synopsis R284. What's lacking in the film was always lacking in the show. It's quite a beautiful movie to watch though, and as close to perfectly cast as any musical made.

R48...So it's a film that somehow suffers from visual and auditory hallucinations, and experiences delusions? That seems impossible. Being a film and all.

R283 The tornado swept up Gulch and killed her. Duh. Toto is fine.

Yeah, Dreamgirls is well-filmed, great cinematography, but I think the songs are mostly not very good aside from I Am Changing and of course, And I Am Telling You. I can't remember the other songs aside from Family.

I think Hairspray has aged quite well.

R280 after I posted I realized I forgot to mention the contrast of Platoon with the brilliance of Full Metal Jacket, truly the difference between a hack filmmaker and a true auteur.

The presentation of FMJ is somewhat odd if you were to look at say, an outline of it, but the segments flow together beautifully and it holds up over time. I've watched it numerous times and it's clearly the best Nam film. Unquestionably!

[quote]I first awoke to that as an 80s kid watching ILL reruns with all the sexism toward the ditsy housewife and casual racism toward the hot-headed Cuban.

Wow. That's really what you see watching ILL??

Casual racism? Against Ricky Ricardo, successful business owner and erstwhile movie star? Yeah, he was discriminated against in every episode! You sound like a barrel of laffs! I bet you DO poop out at parties!

R292 = Fred Mertz

[quote]The presentation of FMJ is somewhat odd if you were to look at say, an outline of it, but the segments flow together beautifully and it holds up over time. I've watched it numerous times and it's clearly the best Nam film.

I'll grant you the first half is brilliant, but do you think the second half is equally good? I like the Saigon scenes, and I'll give it a lot of credit for avoiding the whole "jungle firefight" scenario every other Vietnam film falls back on, but I've never been able to get into the second half. What am I missing?

"Great" films I hated from day one, let alone ones that don't hold up today:

American Beauty - Pretentious bullshit. The bag should have won Best Supporting Oscar.

Forrest Gump - I literally burst out laughing when he started running and his leg braces fell off. I was the only one in the theater that did.

Platoon - Next to The Green Berets, probably the worst Vietnam movie ever made

Vertigo - I was stunned at how awful and gimmicky it was. I'm glad she died.

I went through a little personal era of watching “great” classic movies, and I thoroughly disliked most Hitchcock movies. I kind of like Vertigo as hokey as it is. Rear Window is OK. When I saw Charade, I thought, “whoa! Now I know why people love Hitchcock!” And then I realized it wasn’t a Hitchcock movie.

Acknowledging that everything is subjective, for me, Hitchcock, Spielberg and David O. Russell have made a lot of movies that were torture to watch. David Lynch and Lars Von Trier live up to their artsy reputations. Joseph Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder earned their reputations. And Stanley Kubrick was even greater than his great reputation.

r295, I love you. You sound like a blast to hang out with.

I like Vertigo. the first time I saw it, I didn't get it. But the more I watch it, I love it. It's about obsession and I love how the lead character is a bit creepy although we are supposed to see him as the hero.

R298, yup. I still love Vertigo. Really one of my favorites, and I actually find most of Hitchcock boring.

I remember watching Godsford Park about a year after its big hoopla and thinking it was crap. Albeit I was only 14 at the time, but sometimes a movie is just downright boring.

Forrest Gump is actually a terrible fucking movie. I will never, ever understand the love for that overbearing schmaltz.

I think Gosford Park is perfect.

R244 Dorothy discovers there is something she can buy her dog, a wonderful invention called a leash.

R262 Kidman got raves for "To Die For" and she's very good in it, but the film she really convinced me she could really act was "Malice", a film not talked about that much, but a really good Hitchcock-mode thriller with Alec Baldwin and Bill Pullman and with some great plot twists.

R282, the idea of the matrix itself was first introduced in the 1976 Tom Baker 'Doctor Who' story, 'The Deadly Assassin'.

The Doctor has to enter into the virtual reality of the Matrix in order to find out how his enemy The Master orchestrated an assassination.

“Cruel Intentions 2” was widely revered when it was released but after re-watching it recently I’m not so sure. #amyadamsmostembarassingrole

"Inception" defines this thread.

'Perfomance' was chosen as the best British film ever made by the British Film Institute. It depicts Mick Jagger as a reclusive ex-rock star whose home is infiltrated by a gangster on the run. Aside from the cinematography which seems jarringly dated, it is pretty laughable considering the kind of person Mick Jagger has in fact become, a fat cat businessman.

[quote]Forrest Gump is actually a terrible fucking movie. I will never, ever understand the love for that overbearing schmaltz.

The reason why people loved it is that it was a film for Deplorables, who were just then coming of age. The entire movie was sending a message that people who joined the counterculture and protested Vietnam were all deadbeat losers who ended up like Jenny while anyone who towed the line and listened to authority (like Forrest) wound up leading charmed lives.

Also, this movie was riding off the coattails of the whole "Chicken Soup for the Soul" phenomenon, so millions of people saw it as an inspirational tale about overcoming the odds.

I think it was more the 'Don't worry, be Happy' mass hypnosis, R309, that gave us shit like Forrest Gump.

Baby boomers, much like the millennials they love to mock, are suckers for nostalgia.

That’s why Gump was so popular.

R233, no one objects to GWTW representing the racism of the 19th century. What people object to is how it embodies the racsim of the 1930s.

There were a lot of artists who resisted the racism of the 1930s. But they were not working in Hollywood and GWTW is not as bad as it could have been in this area....but it still is not good.

We are supposed to feel sorry for Scarlet and her sisters being reduced to being farmhands, but accept the blacks working in the fields as normal.

Even the novel shows more empathy for the experience of the slaves than the film does.

R294 you're right, the second half isn't as good as the first. Its the odd presentation that saves it. You're not expecting a conventional story by then so it just plays out. The dialogue is odd, but not cheesy; and the end with the Vietnamese girl is isolated the same way Pyle in the bathroom is. At least that's the way I saw it.

Plus at the time I saw it I was lusting after Adam Baldwin (not now, that RThug!) and Arliss Howard (always and forever; we're growing old together)

Space Jam

You trolls better not ruin my thread with dumb postings. See r314. I am OP, and I have stated my boundaries.

I've never seen Lars Von Trier's DOGVILLE mentioned on DL. It's not a film that was seen by very many people. It is also very divisive in everyway. I saw it in the theatre first--and it divided me the first time as I watched it. The first half I was miserable and hating it. So much so that I wanted to leave. And was about to suggest doing so to the person accompanying me. Then somehow it started turning a corner, and by the end of the film I was pretty well shattered, and couldn't believe how brilliant I thought the entire piece was. I'd never had that experience with a film. And it turns out the person I was with had the exact same experience. The ending is one of the most brutal things I've ever seen. And worse, there is something in it that feels very right and necessary. The performances are also excellent all around. I've seen it several times since. It's not for everybody. But I do think it is a major piece of work. Brave and unsparing.

R316 I had the same reaction to Melancholia, perhaps my favorite movie, and similatly but to a lesser degree with Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark.

My take on some of the films mentioned above:

*Forrest Gump - silly, predictable, saccharine, embarrassing, excruciatingly endless and boring, etc. The one and only notable aspect was the semi-decent soundtrack.

*Melancholia - unexpected, riveting and ultimately a beautiful piece of performance art. Kirsten's comeback made me fall for her all over again and I loved Charlotte Rampling - even in a small role.

*American Beauty - I disagree with all of the hate here as I liked the film when I first saw it and I still like it now. Notice that I said "like". This movie was both smart and witty but never should have been an Oscar contender ever. It was novel at the time however. Annette was lovely for sure, but her best work for me was The Grifters.

*Sunset Boulevard - a masterpiece and one of the more groundbreaking films ever made. The mirror that it placed in front of so many great stars of the Golden Age of cinema must have been riveting at the time. Well acted and produced. Brilliant.

*Platoon - I was about 7 or 8 when I first watched it on some cable station. I hated it. Around 17 or 18 I happened to come across it again. It will never be a favorite, but he certainly captured abandoned youth placed in a terrible time (one that I fortunately never lived through) and the movie was poignant to say the least. I thought that it was both well-cast and well-acted.

*Gosford Park - it amazes me that anyone could dislike this multifaceted, brilliant, amazing tale. The pinnacle of Altman's abilities and both so beautiful and so perfect with every frame. It is perhaps the best work ever seen out of Mirren, Smith, Scott Thomas, Northam and Phillippe (maybe his ONLY good work). I have watched this masterpiece at least 50 times and could watch it 50 more.

ORDINARY PEOPLE BLOWS.

I think it was novel at the time because people were usually ashamed to visit psychiatrists back then, therapy was trendy and it wasn't shown much in movies or TV before.

I think it won Oscars because the Academy voters are mostly actors and they identified with Robert Redford. They voted for actor empowerment.

The movie is tedious psychobabble and melodrama.

R318 We have the exact same taste in movies! The brilliant thing about Ryan Phillippe in Gosford Park is that he is really, really good in it precisely because he is an eager but poor actor, and so as much effort as he put into the role and as bad as he was, that’s what the role called for. Casting him among such a talented, classically trained group of accomplished British actors was brilliant.

R318, I like 'Gosford Park' too, but it's probably a bit slow-moving for some viewers today. (Eg. Leonard Maltin's film guide criticizes it for being too long).

But yes, it has a strong cast of British acting veterans. In addition to the people you mentioned, it also has Alan Bates, Michael Gambon, Eileen Atkins and many others giving great performances. Derek Jacobi has a smaller role, but it's a good one. And Mirren and Smith were both nominated for Oscars.

It has a good Screenplay by Julian Fellowes, who won the Oscar (even if he is a Conservative).

And it showed how Robert Altman could direct strong ensemble pieces, and he was rewarded with a Best Director Oscar nomination.

And yes, Ryan Phillippe admitted in an interview that working with such a big cast of British acting giants was the most intimidating acting job he's ever had.

Go R318 and R20! I am with you on all of what you say.

I am glad you stuck up for AMERICAN BEAUTY. I happen to still love it even. I guess I am the only one anywhere who feels this way. I find there are so many things in it. Alison Janney! This was before we really knew her. It's such a risky performance. What was on the page, I wonder? What she's doing is so out there but completely right. Bening has to play a version of hysteria in basically every single scene. Yet, never do I get tired of what she's doing. The kids are great. Really. The scenes between Thora Birch and Wes Bentley have a marvelous, true intimacy. And I'm sorry, I think Spacey is brilliant in this performance. Funny, sad, pathetic, triumphant, and original. I never knew what he'd do next necessarily. And the design is gorgeous. It completely still works for me. Even if I am the only one who still feels this way.

Regarding GOSFORD PARK: It's perfect. Genius. Every performance. I didn't know Ryan Phillipe the first time I saw it, and thought he was British until the reveal. Has he ever been as good again? And Altman!? GOSFORD PARK, NASHVILLE, SHORT CUTS, THE PLAYER, MASH. Could these worlds be any different from each other? Yet. each film is great and true. His ability to handle a large ensemble is stunning. And has always used such interesting, out-of-left field--actors. And they're always fantastic.

I love that you call MELANCHOLIA performance art. Right on.

Like AMERICAN BEAUTY--ORDINARY PEOPLE still completely works for me. I think it's beautifully acted and directed. I am always surprised it has the ability to move me like it does. There are people with way bigger problems and tragedies. But I find it terribly human and real. I don't think it was just of the moment.

SUNSET BOULEVARD is as good as film gets. So bold. So dark. Devastating. Funny. Tragic. The acting is BRILLIANT. There is a reason Barbara Stanwyck kissed the hem of Swanson's gown at the premier. For the longest time I didn't like Nancy Olson. Then I saw it again, after not seeing it for several years, and thought she was great. She's right on. I had always found her a drip compared to Norma. But that was my mistake. She's quite good in a difficult part. I think it is a masterpiece all around.

'The Black Swan' was basically an attempt to rip off 'Sunset Boulevard'.

Natalie Portman's attempt to portray an actress losing her mind at the end of the film was a poor attempt at doing Gloria Swanson. It was ridiculous that she won an Oscar.

R323, I think it is more of a rip of off The Red Shoes, Showgirls, etc.

^ It was a rip off of Satoshi Kon's "Perfect Blue", which that hack, Darren Aronofsky, actually bought the rights to in anticipation of the inevitable accusations of plagiarism.

R323 R324 I agree completely. BLACK SWAN is ridiculous. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is as brilliant as BLACK SWAN is terrible. Hilarious performances all around. Natalie Portman. Barbara Hershey. Mila Kunis is the only one who saves herself by at least having some fun. Similar to how Gina Gershon saved herself in SHOWGIRLS. Winona Ryder, for whom I've always had a soft spot--HEATHERS, MERMAIDS, the shop-lifting sagas--as the washed up ballerina diva is BEYOND camp. Thrilling. Charles Busch level of hilarity. I was shocked people took BLACK SWAN seriously at all. Let alone the awards and nominations heaped upon it. Insane.

R325, that's right!!! I saw Perfect Blue in high school and it was wayyyyyy more disturbing than The Black Swan, despite being animated. Winona Ryder has some of the funniest dialogue ever in that movie. And I forgot that Black Swan also rips off Repulsion.

R326, I do think Mila Kunis has more star quality than Portman, if not acting ability. She was the only one having fun in the movie.

"Kidman got raves for "To Die For" and she's very good in it, but the film she really convinced me she could really act was "Malice", a film not talked about that much, but a really good Hitchcock-mode thriller with Alec Baldwin and Bill Pullman and with some great plot twists."

I love Malice. It's the sort of mid-level, not award-baiting adult drama that really isn't made anymore. And, Alec Baldwin's conference room speech is almost as good as his screed from Glengary Glen Ross. Anne Bancroft as Kidman's alcoholic mother was a bit of campy overkill, but it worked - "Welcome to the game."

"Maudlin mediocre performances and only made any headway because of the US racial equality fight."

You wouldn't know good acting if it bit you on the ass. "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is a dated movie, but the performances of Sidney Poitier. Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are unforgettable.

Everyone needs to read R118. S/he nails it.

The only part in Gosford Park that didn't work was Stephen Fry's buffoonish police detective. It was like he was in a completely different film. Otherwise, I love all the detail. Lots of cutting offhand remarks, delicious.

[quote]Lots of cutting offhand remarks, delicious.

Yes, Maggie Smith had several good ones, including:

“Difficult colour, green… very tricky”

I find Black Swan compulsively rewatchable. I think it's because I find it so campy and bizarre. It's easily the campiest and most oddball movie to be nominated for Oscars and play mainstream multiplexes in years. It did have a very gritty 70's exploitation movie feel like early Cronenberg or De Palma. I certainly enjoy it more than Mother!

I am so glad people are exposing Black Swan. I kinda wish De Palma had directed it. He would have camped it up and sexed it up. Natalie is just so serious, so dull, that even when her inner bitch comes out, she still doesn't have any fun. Agree about Mila Kunis. She was fun and sexy in the movie.

I thought Black Swan was a straightforwardly bad movie the first time I saw it. It was bad throughout and the ending was as bad as it gets. And so I only saw it that one time.

[quote]"Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is a dated movie, but the performances of Sidney Poitier. Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are unforgettable.

The movie is stylish. Hepburn and Tracy were genuine STARS. That's plenty right there.

And any commercial movie dealing with the social issues of 50 years ago is going to appear dated... but who cares.? "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" seen in context is thoroughly enjoyable.

Joan Crawford's natural style endures for the ages.

r156 and others: The greatest Jimmy Stewart Christmas movie isn't It's a Wonderful Life. It's The Shop Around the Corner. It's the one movie I watch every year at Christmastime, and I think it definitely holds up.

[quote]Hepburn and Tracy were genuine STARS. That's plenty right there.

Yes, Hepburn won her 2nd Oscar for "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner".

[quote]I thought Black Swan was a straightforwardly bad movie the first time I saw it. It was bad throughout and the ending was as bad as it gets. And so I only saw it that one time.

You obviously have bad taste, and probably not gay.

Audiences are too jaded these days, that’s why they hate everything.

They hate anything that's not a comic book movie. And, they have problems with half of those as well.

[html removed]American Beauty and The Fight Club, for me, capture that moment where the post-grunge generation thought they were intellectually sophisticated and truly recognizing some deeper meaning of life in those two po-faced mediocre movies. [html removed]

I’m of that generation and I agree. We were 5-10 years into office work and already we had escapist art. Every douche who thought he was intellectual worshipped one or both of those movies.

Re American Beauty: That fucking plastic bag is about as pretentious as it gets. It looks like it's supposed to mean something, but it doesn't. Even if one argues that it parodies something that appears to mean something, it still comes off pretentious, and silly to boot.

That plastic bag got a Golden Globe nomination, than you very much.

Pulp Fiction. Great movie, but the “small talk” of criminals genre has been done to death now. It’s a great time capsule of the mid 90s aesthetic.

Life is Beautiful. I don’t quite know why. It just didn’t hold up..

Movies made decades ago are of their time and should be considered as such. To say that they "don't hold up" is unfair.

A lot of movies get overpraised. Two that come to mind are "Pulp Fiction" and "Life if Beautiful." I watched "Pulp Fiction" and thought what the hell is supposed to be so incredible about this piece of overrated shit? And "Life Is Beautiful" is pure slop. I found it very uncomfortable to watch the repulsive Roberto Benigni mugging and capering in a movie about the Holocaust. And God knows she should never have won a Best Actor Oscar for that performance. Edward Norton or Nick Nolte should have won that year.

So the word "pretentious" is getting thrown around a lot about American Beauty.

Can anyone elaborate upon this common sentiment? I'm honestly curious. From a critical perspective, I'd love to hear more in-depth thoughts and analysis from film buffs about why the film is pretentious and mediocre.

[quote]They hate anything that's not a comic book movie. And, they have problems with half of those as well.

On the flip side, you have pretentious asses who think any movie that isn't a comic book film is high art and intellectual cinema at its finest.

[quote]From a critical perspective, I'd love to hear more in-depth thoughts and analysis from film buffs about why the film is pretentious and mediocre.

The movie is based around dated tropes and social problems that haven't been relevant since the late 1960s to early 1970s (the mid-like crisis, the cold WASP suburban family). The writing was shallow and sitcom-level, in spite of its pretensions of being deeply philosophical or insightful about the modern world.

It was also an unoriginal, derivative mash up of Save the Tiger, the Ice Storm and Sunset Boulevard.

Lastly, Kevin Spacey's performance was embarrassing. He didn't act as a character; he just imitated Jack Lemmon in the latter stage of his career when he started starring in serious dramas like Save the Tiger and Prisoner of Second Avenue. Seriously, go watch those movies if you haven't already and you'll see exactly what I mean.

I thought Barbara Herzstein and Winona were the only good things about Black Swan.

I still enjoy American Beauty. I think Ordinary People might have done it better, but I love how people are trying to pretend like suburban people like that don't exist anymore. Maybe they're starting to die out a bit now, but I can assure you that they were still alive and well in the 90's and 2000's. My mom and her friends were all like Annette Bening's character and I recall my Dad even telling me he really related to Spacey's character (not in the pervy kid fucker way.)

Bertolucci doesn't age very well.

R351 "Prisoner of 2nd Avenue" is a drama -- it's a Neil Simon comedy and a rather funny one. Lemmon at least pulled back from some of the maudlin sentimental crap he was starting to do around that time and pretty much thereafter.

I like both American Beauty and Ordinary People, but American Beauty was very pretentious.

Rumors are swirling!

Something about 1999’s American Beauty being pretentious

People still love Gone With The Wind passionately. It's a Hollywood benchmark and always will be. Only the sensitive SJW snowflakes hate the movie.

Everyone who loves the movie already knows it's a fantasy and that the friendly relationships between slave and master were totally convoluted. WE GET IT. You don't have to keep reminding us.

SJWs could get offended by Sesame Street.

Like someone else said, take out that awful plastic bag scene and American Beauty actually holds up. That scene, though....ugh. So pretentious.

I have no patience for "The English Patient".

I hated "The English Patient", too.

That bitch Juliette Binoche stole my Best Supporting Actress Oscar!

Sex in a tub; that doesn't work!

R361

[quote]American Beauty and The Fight Club, for me, capture that moment where the post-grunge generation thought they were intellectually sophisticated and truly recognizing some deeper meaning of life in those two po-faced mediocre movies.

Don't ever put Flight Club in the same category of American Club. Fight Club was brilliant. The problem is that pseudo-intellectuals embraced it for the wrong reasons. They actually thought that the gibberish Tyler Durden was spouting was the intellectual part of the movie and embraced it with open arms. They didn't realize that the whole point of the movie was that the Narrator was a complete and total loser who dreamed Tyler up because he was so terrified of having a meaningful relationship with a woman.

It was the plastic bag scene that made “American Beauty” a very pretentious movie, but Annette Bening was great in it.

Fight Club and Seven are both shite. Neither holds up well.

When Harry Met Sally has not aged well, at all.

Ninotchka is offensive to Communists.

All of Michael Mann's films are so rooted in the fashion of their era that they tend to lose a lot as time goes on. The same is true of Cronenberg's films, but his are so unique and compelling that it hardly matters.

The Shining. I watched it last week and it was terrible. Scenery chewing aside, it was just tedious. I fast forwarded through a lot of it. Maybe it was astounding and new in its day but I don’t think it’s lasted.

CMBYN

Well some people thought it was great.

r366, Seven is fkin brilliant. And when Harry met sally is a very well done romcom that still holds up. Die in a grease fire bitch.

R371, When Harry Met Sally is just a ripoff of the Woody Allen movies.

The Departed

Yeah, 'The Departed' was overrated.

It was not Martin Scorsese's best work, but I think they felt they finally had to give him a Best Director Oscar.

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Departed has actually grown on men. It didn't have the stylized punch of his previous works, and so I thought it was a bit overrate upon realize. but actually a very brilliant film. Its overall better than Goodfellas to me. Goodfellas has more iconic scenes don't get me wrong, but storytelling wise The Departed wins. Everyone also delivers Grade A performances.

wow my post is riddled with typos. Try to make sense of it if you can.

377 posts and no mention of Five Easy Pieces? That 98 minutes seemed like 3 hours.

Sideways. I loved it when it first came out. Now it feels affected, tedious and way too impressed with itself.

r379 I find most of Alexander Payne's movies to be as you say. Except maybe for The Descendants, which I hated from the beginning and never saw again. And except maybe for Election, which I've seen several times and enjoyed each time.

Has Up in the Air been mentioned?

Midnight.Cowboy

I don't like Alexander Payne's movies except Election

Knocked Up