Classic movies not worthy of the status

Fuck off! It's got a great central comedic performance!

The Deer Hunter was a bit ordinary.

Star Bores

Star Drek

[quote]The Le [bold]Cruset[/bold] Abuse Troll

Talk about abuse!

Gattaca.

R3 = Peter Jackson, STILL pissed because LOTR trilogy is nowhere near the same in stature.

"The Greatest Show on Earth" owns this thread.

Citizen Kanzzzzzzzzzzz

Saturday Night Fever.

I agree R9. F is For Fake is one I'd like to see again.

Roman Holiday is cute, but ordinary. I’m not sure why it’s remembered.

The Duelists.

OP is on idiot for choosing Seven Year Itch as an undeserved classic. The Billy Wilder film received great reviews then and is still revered. It has aged somewhat, but then many older classics have.

^^ It's always the idiots who are first to use the word"idiot" on DL. ALWAYS.

But thanks for your idiotic post.

[quote]The Billy Wilder film received great reviews then and is still revered. It has aged somewhat, but then many older classics have.

Wow! You don't get it, do you?

Totally agree with you. OP. I tried to watch that film for the first time a few months ago and had to turn it off after 30 minutes, that's how bored I was. I didn't even make it to that iconic scene. It's the first Wilder film I remember disliking.

I mostly watch foreign arty films and these revered classics recently bored me to death and I couldn't finish some of them:

Fritz Lang's M

Jean Renoir's The River

Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove

Max Ophuls's Madame de…

Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel (this one is probably the most boring film I ever sat through. I guess I'm not "deep" enough to get it)

No one reveres The Seven Year Itch apart from costume store proprietors, r14. It has a boring plot, no jokes and a leading man who doesn’t have the charisma for a sitcom.

It has Marilyn doing Marilyn drag, and she is only watchable thing on screen, but that’s not enough to recommend it.

Brazil. I walked out after 35-40 minutes.

[quote]I walked out after 35-40 minutes.

Well done for lasting THAT long.

Hate me if you must but I watched Brokeback Mountain, or tried to the other day, and I found it unintentionally laughable in spots. I thought it was well acted, and if you just took the individual characters and examined them it was OK. it wasn't brilliant, but it was OK. But in general, it just didn't work for me. And honestly who ever did their make up as they "aged" ought to never work in the film industry ever again. Of course maybe they did it themselves, since it was obviously a very low budget movie. Some people consider it a modern classic, but I don't and if it weren't for Heath Ledger, Jake Gylenhaal and Michelle Williams it would never have generated the attention it got.

It Happened One Night. Really? This was a classic?

Any movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. Except National Velvet. Now that was one hell of a movie.

I wanted my money back, r21. BBM would become the last movie I saw in a theatre until Manchester by the Sea.

All About Eve

La Strada

everything made by David Lean after Summertime

Forest Gump

Mrs. Miniver

Persona

The Deer Hunter

and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

[quote]TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

The book was so much better, I never got the adoration of the movie. Of course, I have never been much of a fan of either MacLaine or Winger.

I loved Brokeback Mountain. I was so in the closet and its a closet classic. Easy Rider disappointed me.

I hope you didn't see Easy Rider when it was new, r27. That's a long time in the closet.

Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

It’s soooooo boring. Just disjoint, nonsensical, pretentious drivel. At least that’s my opinion of it. But wtf would I know? I’m clearly an idiot since so many critics and film fans and aficionados LOVE it with not just enthusiasm but a deep and profound passion.

I despair.

All things Twin Peaks after the first ten episodes or so of Season 1.

No R28 I saw it when it was old, haha. But I did come out horribly late.

c'mom, It Happened One Night was fun. My favorite scene was Clark Gable in the phone booth trying to get his job back and then slowly stalking to the bus like a noble warrior off to battle cheered on by his mates (who only heard his end of the conversation).

This is real heresy but 2001. What did it all mean? Who cares.

The Godfather. Can’t watch it without laughing my ass off.

I saw 2001 the first time I was on acid but it still failed to impress

[quote]This is real heresy but 2001. What did it all mean? Who cares.

I am going to see it next month on one of those screens where you wear 3-D glasses. Maybe I will be able to tell you then.

Sleep with Fredo, r33.

I'm not sure that "Lost in Translation" is considered a classic by anyone, but it was the fullest movie I've ever seen.

Full of what, r37?

Reservoir Dogs.

Gone With The Wind owns this thread.

Its a Wonderful Life

John Hughes movies like “Sixteen Candles”and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

They’re ok movies, but I do not understand why they’re remembered so fondly 30+ years later. The comedy way too broad, many characters are just charicatures, and the thin plots (although supposedly “relatable” for young viewers) are completely unrealistic. All I can think of is that they remind the Gen Xers of when they were young.

*caricatures

My friend and I were in a theatre in Canada and we walked out on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was a LAME teen movie. One of the best so called teen movies was Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982).

Wings of Desire. Having loved Paris, Texas I was expecting to also love WoD but it made two hours feel like 20.

Rocky Horror.

After the ape sequence ends, 2001 is mesmerizing to me. I think it is absolutely perfect and somehow it doesn’t bore me at all. I think it is a brilliant metaphysical film. I also love Mulholland Drive. Neither for any pretentious reason; I just love watching both, although Lynch’s recent support of Trump has tainted my support of Lynch.

I recently watched Twin Peaks season one, and I got the feeling “you had to be there” during the zeitgeist. I didn’t love it. I found it pretty boring and eccentric for the sake of being eccentric.

Close Encounters, ET, Indiana Jones, too many Spielberg classics to me have always rung hollow. They are all polished and shiny, but they feel like candy to me without any sustenance. People love Close Encounters and regard it as a great classic, but every time I’ve seen it, I’ve felt like it could have been a thrilling movie if it were made by someone who tapped into psychological near-terror instead of superficial awe and orchestral spectacle.

The scandalous scene (back then), of Monroe's dress blowing up under the subway crate, is what put "The Seven Year Itch" in cult status. Joe DiMaggio, her husband at the time, was so furious, he beat her... for showing her pussy.

Let's start a new thread and call it WORTHLESS OPINIONS.

Including "All About Eve," which has possibly the most brilliant screenplay ever to come out of Hollywood, as a classic not worthy of the name invalidates this entire moronic thread, which I knew before I even looked at it would be a waste of everyone's time. "Worthless opinions" is right.

The Tommy Lee and Colin Farrell sex tapes (respectively) do not live up to their reputations.

There is no accounting for taste, R51. Different people have different opinions. I love All About Eve, mind you, but I challenge many other indisputable greats (Citizen Kane primary among them).

We have some "budding" movie critics on here..

Blue Velvet. I tried watching twice and it was a bore.

The Godfather movies didn't do much for me. I liked the first one, though.

"Terms of Endearment" was horrible. The predicable cancer ending. Jeff Daniels was unbeleiveable as a colleg professor. Maclain was a briitle version of her usual daffy characters and Nicholson was his usual letch. Total crap.

Godfather II remains a classic although it's one reason why we're stuck with so many mediocre sequels.

The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy was a bore.

Walter Matthau tested for the Tom Ewell part in “The Seven Year Itch.” He was was wonderful and was far better than Tom Ewell. I saw the screen test years ago on TV. Tom Ewell was dull.

r50, I get why some would consider All About Eve is overrated. I think in retrospect, Sunset Boulevard is the more complex and more visually compelling movie. There is little that is visually compelling in All About Eve.

I agree 100% about The Seven Year Itch. I absolutely hated this movie, and this is coming from someone who absolutely loves Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17 and Some Like It Hot. That movie was part of a very short-lived trend where directors were trying to shoot in the style of a Looney Tunes or Tex Avery cartoon. The Girl Can't Help It (which was actually shot by an animation director) was also done in that over the top, zany, screwball Tom and Jerry style, and I couldn't stand it either (although, admittedly, the style worked better because Mansfield was like a cartoon character in real life).

CHARIOTS OF FIRE.

Biggest snoozefest ever.

[quote]It’s soooooo boring. Just disjoint, nonsensical, pretentious drivel.

Sorry to be "that person", but if you're calling it disjointed and nonsensical, you didn't get it. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone here; all I'm going to say is that there's a major twist that puts everything in perspective and makes sense of everything that happened in the movie. Once you get the twist. everything that happened before makes sense.

I, too, remember not liking Mulholland Drive, r62. I don't recall the twist.

My Man Godfrey - tons and tons of visual style on every level but the central relationship is a snore. William Powell plays Godfrey like you'd have to kill him before he'd deign to show a flicker of interest in Carole Lombard, and except for her very first scene, Lombard is mannered as hell. I used to blame her for the lack of chemistry between her and Powell, but after watching her movies with others, it's him just refusing. Godfrey is supposed to be guarded but eventually she is supposed to affect him. The rest of the cast is also grating - Eugene Pallette, Alice Brady. The only two people in it who are really fun to watch are Gail Patrick and Jean Dixon. Yes I know Powell was Lombard's ex, and they were on good terms, but there is nothing there - his performance is very ungiving.

I remember seeing this at some revival. I loved many of the comedies of the 1930s - Powell, Gable, Grant, a whole bunch of others, and lots of actresses too. They were all effective and managed to click somehow. This was - THAT's Carole Lombard? She had no comic rhythm - just great beauty and a sort of generalized high energy.

[quote]I, too, remember not liking Mulholland Drive, [R62]. I don't recall the twist.

There is a huge twist in the scene right after Rita opens the blue box and Betty disappears. It's not even a subtle twist, either. Did you watch through to the end of the movie?

R63 The twist is the last 5 - 10 minutes of the movie. I HATED the movie the first time I saw it, up until the end. I was seething. The reviews were all A+. I met a woman who was so proud to have a small part in it, so I saw it. I thought “this is some kind of LSD-influenced Nancy Drew shit with afterschool special-level acting” until the end, and then I was like WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH? And I watched it again and it was a whole different movie. That’s a certain kind of great movie—the kind that makes Kubrick great. Sometimes it’s truly terrible the first time, but after many repeated viewings, it gets better and better.

All about Eve was great, the only problem was Ann Baxter was cast because of her resemblance to Claudette Colbert, who dropped out of the movie and was replaced by Bette Davis. Despite the character's drive, Baxter really did look mousy next to Davis, even when glammed up she looked hella matronly. Next to Colbert, who was sort of that same type, she would have seemed more of a threat.

[quote]I thought “this is some kind of LSD-influenced Nancy Drew shit with afterschool special-level acting” until the end, and then I was like WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH?

LOL! Exactly! That was exactly my reaction, too, like, "WTF is this? Nancy Drew?" Especially that scene at the apartment building where they were trying to track down Diane Selwyn.

Then the movie almost lost me with the sex scenes. That's when I thought, "How tacky; a lipstick lesbian fetish scene straight out of the Howard Stern Show. Yuck!"

Then the twist happened and was like, "O...M...G...This is...this is brilliant!"

[quote]Sometimes it’s truly terrible the first time, but after many repeated viewings, it gets better and better.

Yes. People need to watch the movie several times to catch everything because there's so much going on that it's very difficult to take it all in initially.

R67 I agree about Baxter. I think her acting in the movie is just fine for the role, and I do think the role is a limited stereotype. But the whole of the movie is great. The thing that grates on me is the device of beginning with the end, with a voiceover narrator telling us exactly who everyone is and what will happen. I think the movie would have been much better without that. But listen, I studied writing, and as someone who has been workshopped a hundred times, I have learned that no way of telling a story will ever make everyone happy. It’s impossible. Every work has to be considered on its own merits, and it’s perfectly fine to love something or hate something no matter what others think. Melancholia is my favorite movie. Everyone I know who has seen it (at my recommendation, no less) thinks it’s one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. Fine with me. It doesn’t change my opinion. You can’t argue with someone in such a way as to make their aesthetics match yours. They either do or they don’t.

Breakfast at Tiffanys. Utter dreck.

One more My Man Godfrey problem - it purports to critique how society treats the homeless and indigent, but Godfrey's own superiority turns out to stem from him actually being a wealthy, well-educated American aristocrat who decided to slum as a bum after a love affair turned sour, so society's biases are reinforced in the movie, AND the final scene pretty humorously shows us that Godfrey manages to turn a strand of pearls into a new fortune for the family, AND he opens a restaurant - voila - jobs for the homless, all that was ever needed.

Agree about Breakfast at Tiffanys. I tried, but I gave up. To me, Hepburn is overrated geneally, and the entire movie is really her black dress, cigarette holder and Tiffany's window in the opening scenes. The rest is tedium.

My favorite Audrey Hepburn movie is Wait Until Dark. Scary movies don’t usually scare me, but I get very anxious on her behalf when I watch that one. She was a movie star, not a thespian. That’s OK. She had charisma, for example, in Charade, and she was nice set dressing.

[quote] OP is on idiot

LOL!

[quote]Breakfast at Tiffanys. Utter dreck.

Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. Audrey Hepburn was completely miscast (Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe, who would've been a better fit), George Peppard had the onscreen presence of a sheet of foam core, and there was zero chemistry between the two leads. The story was "meh" and predictable. (Oh, wow, the phony socialite decides to become real and fall in love with the love interest; didn't see that one coming!)

I enjoyed the novella immensely.

[quote]She was a movie star, not a thespian. That’s OK. She had charisma, for example, in Charade, and she was nice set dressing.

I don't think the problem is that she was a poor actress. I think she was horribly miscast in almost everything that she was in. The only movie where she was perfectly cast was Charade. (Grant was old enough to be her father, I know, but was well preserved and had chemistry with her.) But in most of her other movies, she was the wrong type or she would be paired with someone who was either way too old (Astaire) or she had zero chemistry with (George Peppard, Bogart, Holden). Hollywood just didn't know what to do with her.

R77 According to Cary Grant, he turned the role down because he thought the age difference was embarrassing to them both. She insisted that he be in the movie, and she convinced him by convincing the writers to change the characters. Grant’s character in the original script was the sexual aggressor, and Grant thought that was super creepy given the age difference. Hepburn had the writers make her the overly flirtatious one, which changed the chemistry of the whole movie. So let’s give her some credit.

Alright r64, them's fightin' words. But I do agree about Carol Lombard and her shrieking. I haven't seen many of her films so I don't know if she's always hammy like that. Gail Patrick and Jean Dixon were great but I also liked Eugene Pallette. Alice Brady was playing a type of fluttery useless woman who doesn't exist today. William Powell though, he's the best and aside from the first Thin Man (and only the first) Thin Man movie, this was his best role.

Also, it was a screwball comedy and not meant to be a blueprint on how to survive the Depression. It's a classic because it's as funny today as it was in the 30s.

Casablanca. Mildred Pierce. How Green Was My Valley. Klute. Wall Street. Platoon. Top Gun.

Mildred Pierce seems totally anachronistic for its own time, and it features a great performance...and it also features Joan Crawford!

I think Ann Blyth stole the movie from Joan.

R82 That was the great performance referred to in R81.

Pulp Fiction. The Unforgiven. Out of Africa. The Outsiders and Rumble Fish.

R65 r66 Yes, I watched the entire movie. I don't remember a thing about it.

[quote]Melancholia is my favorite movie. Everyone I know who has seen it (at my recommendation, no less) thinks it’s one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. Fine with me. It doesn’t change my opinion. You can’t argue with someone in such a way as to make their aesthetics match yours. They either do or they don’t.

I saw it at the recommendation of two different friends, one because of the Tristan und Isolde music, which we were studying at the time. Another friend, it's his favorite movie. There wasn't enough of a story for me. Or maybe I should say a story I could believe. But yes, de gustibus.

R86 Von Trier’s approach to movies is all about psychological reality and not much about physical reality. I like how imbalanced and disjointed the narrative is, and against my will, I’ve embraced the bizarre settings and casting in his movies. I love that he casts American, English, Swedish and other people as immediate family with no explanation, all speaking in their own accents, and puts them in inexplicable landscapes, and then inexplicably in this movie threw in a rogue Earth-sized planet into the sky with only the explanation that it was “hiding behind the Sun.” It’s all metaphor.

Sacrilege, but after watching the TCM Streisand day, I'll add What's Up Doc?, The Owl and the Pussycat, and The Way We Were. Not just dated, but corny, and Streisand is never playing anything but a vainglorious version of herself, amused at how playful and fun she is!

Sunset Boulevard...unless it was meant to be a comedy. Then it was good.

Mulholland Dr. > Carnival of Souls

[quote] If this piece of drivel was made, imagine the other New York Comedy bores on Broadway during the 50s that didn’t make it to Hollywood? Only a Billy Wilder completist could love this.

Even Billy Wilder called it "a nothing film," and that's because 20th Century Fox neutered it to comply with the Hays Office. In the play, there were a lot of a salacious lines and heavy flirting, culminating in the married male lead character and "The Girl" having sex, which became the talking point of the whole premise. Without this adulterous affair, the whole exercise was rendered pointless.

Let me buy this sweatshirt for all you depressing haters here. Apparently nobody likes anything.

If Carmen comes with it, r92, sure. Send a dozen.

Lawrence Of Arabia

ET Extraterrestrail

I agree about Seven Year Itch. When I first watched it, I was surprised to find Marilyn was just a supporting player and the most famous scene was not shot as it appears in the iconic poster. And was it really common for NYC husbands to send their wives and children off to Maine for the summer, leaving them in the city alone all summer? I might give it some slack though because it might just have translated poorly to the silver screen from the stage and they had numerous problems with the movie censors (the DVD and blu-ray contain two deleted scenes including a much funnier and racier version of the bathtub scene).

Like others, I'd also add Breakfast at Tiffany's. No doubt Audrey's look and the Givenchy black dress are fabulous and iconic. But everything else is meh and oftentimes unintentionally hilarious. I laughed when Buddy Ebsen showed up and tried to get Audrey to come back home with him and it is revealed that Audrey was his 14 year old wife.

I disagree about My Man Godfrey too. Maybe it's bc I first saw it as a child, in a happy place. I think it's perfect. Perhaps it is William Powell's best, but to me he's one of those rare actors who were always at their best.

I just saw a very fluffy pre-code film w him, in the silliest role of a lush/playboy, but he made it charming and irresistible, and it felt like you were in the same room with him, whenever he was on screen.

I'm slowly watching all of his films, even the silent ones.

The Road To Singapore trailer. Sorry OT but watch it.

All The President's Men.

Bad writing, horribly dialogue, the pacing was off and Redford is a lousy boring actor.

The Seven Year Itch husband was supposed to be a dud, but they took it too far by casting poor Tom Ewell

R96 Yes it was common in the 1950s and even 1960s to send the family to a resort or the mountain or the seashore on vacation during the summer. Most households did not have air conditioning and even when they did it only covered 1-2 rooms, not the whole home. It was almost expected to go away each summer.

I liked 7 yr itch for its confectionery qualities. It's just silly, and doesn't try to pretend to be anything else.

Agree about BaT's, GwtW, and everything Liz Taylor lol. I would also add most of Hitchcock's big ones, w the possible exception of Psycho. Rewatching his movies as an adult I found them all sort of clumsy, trite and predictable. Orson Welles' is disappointing for me too w few exceptions.

Mulholland Drive otoh, is brilliant, though I will concede that the lesbian love scene was a bit drawn out.

A few more stinkers - A Wonderful Life, Casablanca, To Kill A Mockingbird

R100 I believe he originated the role on Broadway so that might be why they cast him.

R101 Thanks

All of the dumb movie musicals like Oklahoma, 7 Brides, The Music Man, Carousel, West Side Story, Flower Drum Song........GREASE.

R96, as already mentioned, yes. Among the white collar class, the wives and children went off to retreat to escape the NYC heat, while the men stayed in the city to finish up some business deals before catching up with the family over the weekend. This seemed to be a frequent premise on "Mad Men."

Re: people naming Casablanca.

This was a movie that I avoided like the plague because I was convinced it would be a raging disappointment.

When I was finally forced to watch it, I was shocked (shocked!) that it lived up to its rep!

Haha Rumblefish was revered for a while.

Who lists The Seven Year Itch as a classic movie? It's not on Rotten Tomato's list.

Agree r9.

Bearing in mind that the thread title says classic movies, I don't think The Greatest Show on Earth is regarded as a classic by anyone (although it is quite execrable, Heston at his hammiest. Oh wait, he was always hammy).

A commenter on AVClub the other day...I think it was in response to a Savage Love column about drag...said that Some Like It Hot is not a very good movie. I've seen clips so many times over the years that it feels like I have seen it, but i haven't, so I don't know how it fares.

Also: .When I saw The Terms of Endearment, I could not figure out how they even got that screenplay from the book; it bears almost no resemblance to the source material.

I think "Some like it Hot" will withstand the test of time. It's often genuinely funny with a great story - and the chemistry of Marilyn, Lack Lemmon and Tony Curtis is wonderful.

Uh, sure, there was "no chemistry" between Lombard and Powell. They had only been a married couple before this movie was made, and remained close after their amicable divorce.

It has every classic element of the American screwball comedy (including the intricacies of the societal values) and is probably the best of the genre.

After you see some gangster movies from the 30s, especially the original "Scarface", you see what a cliche-ridden, racist, plagiaristic and overly-long bore The Godfather was. But that's par for the course for F. F. Coppola.

[quote]Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. Audrey Hepburn was completely miscast (Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe, who would've been a better fit), George Peppard had the onscreen presence of a sheet of foam core, and there was zero chemistry between the two leads.

I know. Not for a second did I believe she secretly wanted to be with him, as we were supposed to....and, not for a second did I think after the scene in the rain they ran off and got married.

But I love the stylish look of the film....and the music etc..and looking at her.

And I am a very stylish girl.

The Big Lebowski.

R17, how can you find "Dr. Strangelove" boring?

TITANIC owns this thread. Within the first few minutes of the movie I wanted to throw Leo Caprio overboard and he wasn't even on the ship yet!

[quote]The Big Lebowski.

OMG, yes. I saw this when it was released expecting this to blow me away and it was absolutely abysmal. I can't remember one thing about it except the scene in the bathtub. I think the Coen Brothers lost it in the 1990s.

Speaking of the Coen brothers, Fargo. This was one of the most mean-spirited movies I've ever seen and it just seems as if the only reason it gained any traction is that any crime drama shot in the vein of Pulp Fiction was immediately deemed a cult classic (especially if it included a diner scene).

Chicago. All those years of floating around top notch casting ideas (Liza/Goldie, Goldie/Madonna) and we got a miscast Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones. And a piece of Fosse-esque brilliance turned into a music video for MTV. Marshall should have been horsewhipped for destroying Billy Flinn's big number. The most glaring example of how the Weinstein influence ruined movies. (Foisting Jennifer Lawrence upon audiences is a close second).

Brokeback Mountain is a great movie if you take it like it is. A movie about gay men helmed by straights and targeted to a straight audience. Otherwise, you can overlook the glaring flaws, like that initial sex scene. No way would these cowboys have done anal the first time. It would have been blow jobs and tongue licking/body exploration all the way.

But you can't help but think how it would have been done in the hands of an openly out gay director who would have explored the erotic subtext and the pent up sexual frustration in an honest way.

r99 I, too, found All the President's Men to be less interesting than I expected, and much less interesting than the world at large seemed to find it. I thought its nominations and awards were more a referendum on Nixon and Watergate than love for the movie.

Glad I'm not the only one.

R120, Madonna is a top notch casting idea on what planet?

I loved "All The President's Men" -- not as much as I loved the real Watergate, but close.

Miracle on 34th Street

Lola Montes

Agree with almost all of these except r99/r122 - strongly. If anything it’s underrated these days.

And Redford has given a lot of terrible wooden performances but he’s actually extremely good in this.

It’s an impeccable film in every way.

I've never understood how the likes of "Grease" and "Dirty Dancing" are considered classics.

Shoot the Piano Player - I've watched it twice and still don't get it's 'classic' label.

West Side Story - Gay Ghey Gei

Great thread op! Find myself agreeing with many of the posters - and disagreeing as well! Some of the films they hate are favourites that I really enjoy! - but like hearing the individual posters’ reasoning and thoughts about their picks...

For what it’s worth - I kinda have a nostalgic fondness for big, lavish musicals - even tho some don’t translate that well from their broadway origins into film. But the one musical I HATE is Grease. As I said in a different thread recently - some great individual song and dance numbers - but overall it’s a mess, I dunno how any adult can sit through it.

2001 seems to polarise people. My dad took me to see it when I was a kid - and I just thought the end was a fizzer and left me confusied and unsatisfied. I’ve read the short story it was based on since - and the novel - and like it a lot more now. So much of it is brilliant! - but I do still find the long ape segment at the start a bit ho-hum - and the ending does still really leave me a little bored too. I generally hate science fiction film or tv that has a MUF (mysterious unknown force) as its resolution. It’s so lazy and predictable. But the rest of 2001 is so good that I can handle it here :)

I only watched My Man Godfrey recently on YouTube because people on another thread were RAVING about how good it is. And I love thirties and forties comedies - they’re some of my favourites! But MMG left me cold. Found it unfunny and forced. And generally I like Powell and find Lombard delicious. But here - she’s so fake and OTT - the character is truly stupid and unsympathetic. I really enjoy Bringing Up Baby in comparison - one reviewer at the time said that Grant doesn’t so much fall for Hepburn - as she simply wears him out and he gives up (or words to that effect!) - and think that’s even more applicable to MMG. Everything about it is just meh. I don’t get the love.

But thanks for all the thoughtful responses everyone - makes me wanna go and see so many of these films again and re-evaluate!

R130 here again - thought of another! - It’s a Wonderful Life. Love Stewart and Reed in other stuff - and so many of the supporting players too - but this film is soooooo dull! I’ve tried a few time’s to watch it - and never get much more than half way. Again - I just don’t get it.

I don’t understand why IAWL is such a beloved heart warmer. It’s cynical and depressing and it shows a man who makes poor decision after poor decision about to kill himself and is saved by magical thinking and a literal deus ex machina and the kindness of “strangers”. If I were alone at Christmas and watched IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE I would be slitting my wrists.

Granted, James Stewart plays hysterical very well and the phone kiss with Donna Reed is romantic.

Another vote for Easy Rider. Complete waste of time.

[quote]saved by magical thinking and a literal deus ex machina

I have never been able to watch it long enough to know whether the deus is literal. That whole time of year is so depressing.

Thank you.

R79, take a look at her in True Confession and The Princess Comes Across, both with scrumptious Fred MacMurray. She is delightful.

I love Wait Until Dark until the end when the husband is being a control freak after everything she has been through . I love that the little girl ignores him. I'm finding myself a fan of Audrey late in life. I have liked everything except the one she did with Fred Astaire ..

To me the problem with All About Eve is Margo Channing is an amazing character and Davis performance but she is given next to nothing to do the last 20 minutes or so in the movie....

"No way would these cowboys have done anal the first time."

Why not? They had plenty of practice on the sheep.

Some Like It Hot is a great example of a cool story, brilliant writing, great pacing and talented performances. This is how directors should craft a movie.

I posted up thread about how much I disliked Brokeback and I think what just didn't work for me is that I just could not get my head around the fact that these two sustained anything resembling a relationship over, what? 20 years? Not on the thin gruel we were given. I just didn't think the director did a good enough job of telling their story. And yes, after the movie came out and I'd seen it I read the short story. The first encounter was jarring and awkward, IMO, but it wasn't that bad. In fact the opening of the movie raised my hopes. But then it was a huge FAIL. I'd have to draw a line between their scene in bed at the motel, and everything else that happened after. And I will repeat, the hair and make up was atrocious. it was just terrible.

[quote]I don’t understand why IAWL is such a beloved heart warmer.

Because people are sheep. The movie was not only a major bomb at the box office, it was hated for decades when it started aired repeatedly on local stations several times every holiday season. It wasn't until after Stewart died and NBC gave this shitty movie an annual airing with much fanfare that everyone started embracing it as the best holiday film of all time and now gush about how beautiful it is.

I also have this theory that the dumber American culture gets, the more we're going to start dropping well made classic films in favor of junk.

^ Oops. I meant *...started AIRING repeatedly on local stations...* in R140.

R135 I would but...Fred MacMurray? Never been a fan.

That reminds me of another, Preston Stugis. I don't like his films at all.

GOD. I meant Preston Sturges.

Yes, I thought "the sex" in Brokeback was very odd indeed. But then thought maybe it's just me who doesn't behave like that.

R48, She didn't show any such thing. Joe was just nuts

From Here to Eternity. I was really expecting something great, but it was melodramatic and trite.

I think Melancholia is a masterpiece, but I’m not sure because I won’t rewatch it. It was really scary and painful to watch, awful in the archaic sense. It has the most accurate depiction of extreme depression I have ever seen on film, in Dunst’s character. Her debility in the beginning is what you see when chemical changes in the brain advance beyond emotional, and into physical, symptoms of depression. A paucity of serotonin and dopamine causes it. That alone makes it classic to me.

Some of the problems with a couple of these may have to do with the differences between literary sources and onscreen interpretations.

In the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the male escort was gay, gay, gay. The relationship between him and Holly is a close friendship, and telling the story from his perspective is a huge part of the story, and as with Gatby (which likewise doesn’t translate to film), the mystery of who he really is is a huge part of the story. He objectifies people. In the movie, he is straight and objectified and defined as George. It was destined to fail as a narrative because the relationship cannot be the same.

I have not read Brokeback, but I saw nasty old Annie Proulx do a reading at a writer’s conference and she was dismissive of it and seemed to be embarrassed when asked about being a pioneer writing about a gay relationship. From what I remember, she basically said it was just an interesting story about two people who were isolated and needed companionship, and not some sort of politically motivated thing. The way the movie was done does not jibe with its originator’s intention for the story, and although I think Ang Lee is brilliant, I think the styling of the movie was atrocious and unintentionally made it laughable at times, and it felt like a politically motivated movie instead of a legitimate love story. It felt artificial to me.

Re 2001...well, Kubrick always uses source material as a scaffolding to build his philosophical treatises on. The novel is straightforward sci-fi. The movie’s abstract flourishes are the director’s vision, love them or hate them. I love them. The plot of HAL taking over for me is a lame sci-fi snoozer and the reason I always avoided this movie. When I saw the movie finally, I saw that as a plot device for an existential exploration and I could not love it more than I do. The ending to me is mesmerizing. The psychedelic visions enraptured me the first time. The hotel room part threw me—but that is from the novel; it’s just that the novel was more explicit about what was happening. (Dave was drawn into another dimension by alien entities and he becomes a specimen in an exhibit designed to make him feel “at home” the way we build zoos and pretend animals feel like they are in their natural settings. But for Kubrick it’s not about this physical reality; it’s about the nature and spirit of this individual man and the evolution and transcendence of the species beyond our current form over space and time. I know people hate ambition like that, but I always admire people who try to dramatize ideas like these, and I think Kubrick does so successfully in a way that’s coded enough that the movie can still be largely appreciated on its surface merits, but really appreciated with further thought.

[quote]West Side Story - Gay Ghey Gei

I used to love that movie as a kid until I learned years later that the musical was actually supposed to be based in real life gang warfare in 1950s Hell's Kitchen. So now it all seems a bit cringey to me today, about as goofy as having a musical based in Compton starring the Bloods and Crips, with both gangs prancing around and doing pirouettes while singing these cheesy songs.

I also cringe at the fake swearing and prancing around sex. "Ever loving..." "Mother loving..." Annoying. You create a musical based around gritty subjects like racism, killing and sex but then play coy about everything. Natalie Wood was a disaster, not only in brown face but had a stupid accent.

R148, I love WSS it was ground breaking theater.

MM is the reason to see it- she’ effervescent- literally and delivers her dingbat naive blond lines as if no one ever had before. She’s magic on film. If you don’t know it, cannot see it- go back to your video game.

WSS was magnificent in looking at race and power.

In America, we saw that the women loved assimilating because of all the new freedoms they enjoyed while the men were bitter about all the power and control they had lost.

That scene where the cop tried to appeal to the Jets' Irish tribalism offended the kids even more than the PRs

R103, During the nearly three year original Broadway run, Ewell was replaced by both Eddie Albert and Eddie Bracken.

My favorite Audrey movie is "A Nun's Story." It's all down to the director, Fred Zimmerman. He also directed "From Here to Eternity." What I like about those two movies is he shoots in epic locations but has such a wonderful sense of place and pace you feel as if you're there. After watching the nun's story, you feel like you've been to Africa, after From Here to Eternity, that you've been to a military base in Hawaii in the 1940s. He takes his time, lets the place itself settle in. But Audrey was really good in a nun's story. The production worked with the Catholic church, and the movie's advisors had to reassure the church about the Peter Finch/Audrey Hepburn relationship. They had tremendous chemistry but the movie never got coy with it, nor play fast and loose.

I don't like Audrey, and I like Fred, but Funny Face sucks because Fred Astaire was the romantic lead. I used to like to watch movies on Saturday afternoon as a kid - old movies. When I saw this, not knowing who the leads were, I almost threw up when that skinny, pushy old man kissed Audrey out of the blue. Who the fuck did that grandpa think he was? And then there was all that dialogue about needing to be kissed - not from YOU, you decrepit old fuck.

My incipient little feminist self would always just not get it in these old movies when some young woman would be pursued by some old man - an old man who felt no insecurity at all about coming on to a woman young enough to be his daughter or even more so. The woman was usually feisty, so I never understood why she didn't kick his ass. When she started pining, I would feel so betrayed. :(

8 1/2. While I do like Fellini films, I just couldn't get into this film at all.

A Boy and His Dog

The Man Who Fell To Earth

Rio Bravo

I hated Breakfast at Tiffany's. I thought Holly Golightly was a shallow bitch, especially when she ditched the poor cat out in the rain.

OP has been punched, deleted, ff'd, blocked and pushed into a grease fire.

Seven Year Itch might have been a better film if a more attractive actor had been cast in the leading role.

For me at least, 1968’s Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid

R140 gimme the original Miracle on 34th street over IAWL anyday

Add me to the list of people who don't get West Side Story. Lovely score, yes, but I never liked the story very much. And I know some people hate the movie version, but I know a lot of of people who consider the movie version of Gypsy with Natalie Wood to be a classic and I don't understand it at all. I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking it was the most boring movie I'd ever seen in my life. I saw it on stage a few years ago and was blown away by how brilliant the play was. I'm not sure what got lost in translation, but that musical deserves better. I even tried watching the Bette Midler version and it's more faithful to the musical, but it's almost as dull as the Natalie Wood movie. What's the issue with bringing this story to the screen? Something always seems to fuck things up.

Camelot was uniformly panned, wasn't it? I HATE that movie. Great score, but there's something so lethargic about it. Such beautiful sets and costumes, but I feel nothing.

R154, have you seen Love in the Afternoon? Audrey Hepburn, this time paired with Gary Cooper.

Vertigo own this thread. Unintentionally laughable. Some movies named here are just old movies, not classics

I thought West Side Story was supposed to be an adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

[quote]I thought West Side Story was supposed to be an adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

It was. But the gimmick was that it was Romeo and Juliet updated for modern times (or in its case, juvenile delinquency and gang warfare).

[quote]I thought West Side Story was supposed to be an adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.

It was an adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. You were expecting Verona?

R165 it is. Some films don't hold up well with the passage of time. If someone has to explain the context of a movie, then IMO it's a fail. Look at Citizen Kane, which is a classic and deservedly so. Obviously it was film about and during a particular time in our social culture. But it still has psychological themes about human behavior that resonate today. Same with Mildred Pierce. Personally I love West Side Story. I love the music, the choreography, etc. even if the dialogue is rather quaintly outdated.

[quote]Vertigo own this thread. Unintentionally laughable.

I consider that Hitchcock's worst and most hackneyed film. (Yes, even worse than Marnie.) It completely dropped a character and her subplot halfway through the movie, and then has the love interest fall off a tower with no explanation as to why she fell backwards in fright. It also ripped off the bell tower scenes from The Stranger.

Okay, people might hate me for this, but Young Frankenstein.

Keep in mind that I don't dislike the movie. I just never thought it was ever as uproariously funny as everyone thought it was, and that it got way more acclaim than it should have because it was so artfully shot (it nailed the look of a vintage horror movie). I mean, c'mon, the "Putting on the Ritz" scene isn't really that funny.

Ditto a lot of classic comedies. I was the perfect demographic for Ghostbusters when it first came out, and never found it that funny or interesting. People used to practically scream with laughter at that scene of Bill Murray going "I've been slimed!" (It even became a catchphrase!) I just never got why that and the rest of the movie was so funny. And the Slimer character ranks right up there with Jar Jar Binks in terms of unfunny and annoying cartoon character.

Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Seemed like an early made-for-TV movie.

Kim Novak had a fear on nuns. Don't we all?

I'll second Ghostbusters. It's amusing, but I never found it laugh out loud funny like a lot of people. It seemed to work better as a light fantasy film than a comedy.

I found Pink Floyd's The Wall hard to sit through.

Some comedies don't stand up with repeated viewings. I think It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World is a classic and uproariously funny no matter how often I see it. I also love A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. They seem to withstand the test of time. But Airplane doesn't and Neither does The Producers. I used to love The Producers 35 years ago, but now, not so much. But I do love young Frankenstein because I love Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and the incomparable Madeline Kahn. She is exquisite. Sometimes a comedy works because it's the first of its kind, a spoof, like Blazing Saddles.

"Back To The Future" is definitely underwhelming considering its popularity.

The choreography in WSS was dated even in the 90s when I first saw it.

The songs and the supporting performances are good enough to tide it through, though.

Speaking of which, I HATE The Lion King. I really liked The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, of the era. With adorable animals, an all star voice cast, 3 cracking songs and a title number that brings me to yet but I find the movie and the ‘characters’ unengaging. And I love Hamlet!

[quote]MM is the reason to see it- she’ effervescent- literally and delivers her dingbat naive blond lines as if no one ever had before. She’s magic on film. If you don’t know it, cannot see it- go back to your video game.

R150, no one was complaining about Marilyn Monroe, read the thread, you patronising fuck. It’s the slight script, flat jokes, ineffectual leading man and zany direction that are the problems.

Haatchi (boring)

Anything by Spielberg

Anything by Barbra.

Lawrence of Arabia.

Bambi is a legitimate classic film and a masterpiece. The Lion King is a Disney ripoff of a Disney original masterpiece.

If Lion King is old enough to be considered and we’re talking about comedies, then Clueless exceeds its reputation circa 2018.

[quote]All About Eve

That is one of the best scripts ever.

You are such a stupid person. I am so glad I don't know you.

Please give me your name so I will make sure never to invite you to one of Bill and my dinner parties.

[quote]But Airplane doesn't and Neither does The Producers.

Airplane completely lost its luster for me when I saw how much it was based off of Hellzapoppin' and Zero Hour. Until then, I thought it was oh, so original.

Here's a word you need to look up, R183: parody.

I've never understood the love for coma-inducing Citizen Kane.

I walked into the room while my father was watching Dr. Strangelove, saw a few minutes of the "bodily secretions" scene, then walked right back out.

It's respect, R185, not love. "Citizen Kane" established so many of the cinematic techniques that are used even today. Try reading a book about film, you dumbass, before making such pronouncements that only make you seem ignorant.

[quote]Airplane completely lost its luster for me when I saw how much it was based off of

Airplane is entirely too old to be based "off of" anything.

Go change your tampon, r186. I have read about Citizen Kane's cinematic techniques and still find it overrated. I don't have to bow down to your sacred calf.

The Japanese ripped off Bambi with Kimba the White Lion, and the Lion King ripped off Kimba.

I think Airplane holds up remarkably well.

I get that Citizen Kane and Welles’s filmmaking influenced many directors and perhaps begat great things. That’s the disconnect, at least for me. People argue that Citizen Kane is a great movie and a highly entertaining movie, and for this viewer it is not engaging to watch and its greatness, I suppose, lies in technique—making it great to people invested in the craft of filmmaking but not for everyone in the audience.

There are different approaches to appreciating things. A movie like Citizen Kane could be said to be “great” for its role in the history of filmmaking but (arguably to many) not very good for its entertainment value.

In grad school (fiction writing), my department chair classified two different types of great writers: the innovators and the masters. Innovators invent radically new techniques and often fail, produce clunky, confusing work that may be revered by other writers as life changing and rejected by audiences as unreadable—Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Faulkner’s Sound and The Fury. And then there are masters, who study those radical techniques, continue to experiment with them and eventually tame the wilderness of them into something more readable or more easily accepted by a reader. An example for me is Toni Morrison, who IMO is an heir to Faulkner’s style, but whose work is more accessible. He’s an innovator of certain techniques that she has mastered. Welles can be appreciated as an innovator even if many of us don’t feel like Citizen Kane is masterful entertainment. And proof of his brilliance is that people don’t just have different opinions, but strongly held opinions they argue about.

I liked Citizen Kane a lot the first time I saw it. I couldn't wait for it to end the second time, years later in a theatre with friends.

[quote]Here's a word you need to look up, [R183]: parody.

Aww, look at the cutie pie who just looked up the word parody on the internet yesterday, talking down to someone who learned about and had to read parodies in grammar, high school and college 25 years ago. Isn't it cute how Graduates of Wikipedia University always think that just because they looked something up, they're just so much smarter than everyone else?

Obviously, what I said confused the Wikipedia University graduate, so I'm going to have to explain myself again:

Something can be a parody and yet still be completely unoriginal. For example, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were parodies of the Western and monster genre but the stories, jokes and characters were completely new and different. The jokes were original and unique. (Like how in Blazing Saddles, the movie broke the fourth wall and panned away from the back lot.)

Airplane was a parody of the Airplane disaster movies, but it created the parody by doing a shot for shot, line by line remake of Zero Hour, an obscure movie that no one remembered or realized Airplane had been based on until decades later. The "zany comedy" of the movie wasn't original; it was straight out of Hellzapoppin'.

Got it now?

West Side Story is one of the most overrated pieces of dreck ever made.

2001 A Space Odyssey.....zzzzzzz....

Imagine how much better "Seven Year Itch" would be if it had starred Jack Lemmon?

I enjoy "Breakfast at Tiffany's" but realize that it would have been a much better movie with a more charismatic lead -- playing a gay character -- and ANYBODY but Mickey Rooney for the dreadful Mr. Yunioshi character! I thought Audrey did a fine job.

R195 that’s a good point about Lemmon. We might not have gotten him in Some Like It Hot. Who knows. It seemed like he was more sympathetic to Monroe being nervous and unprofessional more that Wilder and Curtis.

I thank Marilyn Monroe because she helped get me into on of my fovorite hobbies. Classic movies.

As a millennial and before my generation I’m sure Monroe was kind of made a Saint of Hollywood tragedy with most focusing on her looks, men, nerves and dysfunction but not her movies.

When I was in High School I got a copy of Seven Year Itch and it did nothing for me. Watched it years later and again —nothing.

Watching My Week with Marilyn showed me that she photographed well. Was beautiful and was a bombshell in technicolor. I really can’t see why else she was put up with. Poor thing was a “five o’clock girl” for directors and producers for years. Then Strasberg and Co. dug their claws in and made her dependent on them.

Bus Stop is especially bad. I had never seen a clip of Kim Stanley doing it on Broadway but I did a while back and I don’t know how much Marilyn stole from Stanley’s performance but that twangy accent (I’m southern and I’ve never heard it before. Kansas/Missouri?) can’t be mistaken as anything but “inspiration.”

Even Megan Fox who has never struck me as a Rhodes Scholar removed her tattto and stopped glamorizing her.

I guessed the outcome of The Sixth Sense within the first 10 minutes. The subsequent career of that initially-overated hack pleases me.

Casablanca and Gone With the Wind are both completely overrated.

Re: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Wasn't Peppard's character gay in the book?

Dr. Strangelove

I'll second Citizen Kane. Yes, it's beautifully shot, but I found the story so boring. It's more of a film I appreciate than like.

R170, I agree with you 100% about Ghostbusters. I never got the phenomenon, which was greatly enhanced by the carbon copy theme song* By the way, Joan Rivers never liked it either, and said so publicly.

*When the theme song of Ghostbusters was released, Huey Lewis sued Columbia Pictures and Ray Parker Jr. for plagiarism, stating that Parker's song was too similar to Lewis' "I Want a New Drug". Lewis had been approached to compose the main theme song for the film. The three parties settled out of court. (Per Wikipedia and my memory)

How weird. Seven Year Itch was on TV over the weekend and I watched it for the first time.

Glad to have finally seen it. I kind of enjoyed it. It was a triffle, but definitely not a classic. Marilyn did a very good job.

Not a surprise Tom Ewell didn't have a bigger movie career. He was so bland in this. I agree that Jack Lemmon would have been fantastic in the role.

But the biggest thing is that after years of seeing that shot of Marilyn with her dress blowing up from the breeze of the subway, I was shocked that shot was not in the film! Yes, they showed a shot of her lower torso with the dress blowing up and a second shot of just her legs with the dress blowing up. But a full body shot of her with the dress blowing up wasn't there!

That shot is part of the American consciousness! There are now statues of Marilyn in that pose, but we never saw that shot in the movie. How bizarre. Talk about a let down.

[quote]Watching My Week with Marilyn showed me that she photographed well.

That was Michelle Williams.

One small snippet of them exiting the theater is the only footage used from that night. Supposedly the crowds cheers each time the dress rose couldn't be erased from the soundtrack so it was reshot in the studio. You can find subtle differences in set and her hair. The NYC street shoot was mainly for publicity.

Oh, me too with It Happened One Night! That was tough going. It looked like a regular MGM movie to me - nothing special.

Kind of a tangent - I went on a binge watching some of the less-known movies the big MGM stars made during the era they were making their classics. Not only are the supporting players constantly recycled but so is some of the dialogue and jokes. I'm like - wait a second, why is Jean Harlow making that joke in Reckless - Myrna Loy made it in Libled Lady! (Well, actually Reckless was made first but Harlow is awkward delivering it.) Frank Morgan pops up constantly, so does Una Merkel, so does Hattie McDaniel. It Happened One Night had a heart-warming community sing along on a bus; Saratoga had a heartwarming sing a long on a train. MGM really was a factory in the 1930s. Back to Topic - do not get it with It Happened One Night, although I like the last scene between Gable and Walter Connolly. Gable and Colbert had no chemistry and IMO Colbert has acting skill but no charm. And she's weird looking. Moon faced but matronly, and no neck.

I think All About Eve is one of the best films ever made. No question it is a classic. Superb script.

That said, I agree with a poster above who noted Margo Channing disappears in the last 20 minutes and has nothing to do. Also agree with several posters who said Anne Baxter is weak link in the cast. Baxter seems to be about 10 years too old for the role. Likewise, Baxter doesn't seem to come close to matching Bette's acting power.

Fight Club

You were supposed to R174.

There are plenty of "classic" movies out there that either aged poorly or were never good in the first place.

Shakespeare in Love

The 39 Steps

The Hustler

Mean Streets

Brazil

Honestly I've found Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo really dull

According to Wikipedia:

"Vertigo received mixed reviews upon initial release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film and one of the defining works of his career. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane (1941) as the best film ever made in the 2012 British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' poll."

I do not like Cool Hand Luke. I thought the acting and dialogue were both sub standard and combined together they made almost every character completely insufferable. Many of the scenes bored me because they lacked purpose or they just went on long after they should have ended

Is Scarface considered classic? ...the Pacino one.

I would say yes, Scarface with Pacino is a classic.

One thing that bothered me about watching Seven Year Itch in HD in Ye Modern Times was that MM had her body makeup smeared all over that white dress. It was FILTHY!!

All of the macho classics like someone above said "Cool Hand Luke", etc. All of the "big" westerns and early American struggle pics.

I have to agree and say that the only reason Mean Streets is good for me is because of the soundtrack. Not only The Paragon's Florence but also:

Agree on Ghostbusters. At twelve years old, I should have loved it. I never got it. To me, it's just boring. Not to mention the fact what they were "busting" was more like goblins and demons than ghosts.

I'll add:

Grease- Overrated, long, silly commercial for ONJ and Miss Revolta.

A Christmas Story- I usually love the 1920's, 30's, and 40's and for awhile I actually liked this movie. But now, it's been shoved in my face and down my throat for so long. It's tedious and annoying, and the characters are all idiots. I'm sure a lot of old deplorables just love this movie out of nostalgia for when America was "great".

Harry Potter- All of them. So tired of these movies and books being put on a pedestal as the epitome of children's entertainment. So much was stolen from other sources, but HP is always touted as unique and original. Then there's the fans as well, who live in a dream world and don't want to grow up. Nauseatingly smug, all of it.

Hear me out. I don't want to be crude, but I saw 7 Year Itch and it made no sense to me. Tom Ewell's casting and some of the dialogue. I kept thinking about it and then I thought that maybe Tom Ewell's character must have had a huge penis. I rewatched, then it all made more sense and I really liked it more. A different explanation would be that Tom Ewell's character sees Marilyn on the street and the rest of the action in the movie is due to a bored, lonely Ewell's (whose family had left town for them Summer) daydreaming about being involved with MM. A third explanation: I rewatched and viewed it as Tom Ewell is an Everyman shmoe, who strikes it rich in the relationship department for a short time. This movie was a tough one for me. Due to decades of hype, I really had to make sense of the script. Now that I am a bit older I think the PR HYPE and Marilyn's sexiness is what put the movie on the map. I agree with everyone who said that Jack Lemmon should have been cast, but ultimately this really was a movie that made me think about the plot and the dialogue-the situation-so much, that it will always be a classic for me.

r225 In the play, Tom Ewell's character does sleep with Marilyn Monroe's character.

That was changed for the movie censors so that Ewell's character just fantasizes about it.

I think that Wilder wanted a shot of Ewell making the bed and we see a bobby pin in it, but that was a no no.

Wait a minute - someone down thread actually said Top Gun was a classic movie?

Green For Danger.

It’s not a classic, but it is old. There are so many better films of that ilk that could have been in the Criterion Collection but this was a total snooze.

Even with the censorship of TSYI, it’s still a basic, done-to-death story (the frazzled working dad lusts after his hot young neighbour!) that barely fills 25 minutes in a 1970s sitcom. Even if he does fuck Marilyn and they exchange double entendres, there’s not much “there” there.

The genesis on Broadway is key. It’s a digestible fantasy presented for 1950s bourgeois theatre-goers to enjoy for a “sophisticated” date in town, before indulging in cocktails and steak and heading back to suburbia where they recommend it to their neighbours.

Tom Ewing isn’t bad, as such, he’s just the poor man’s Glenn Ford minus the sensuality and screen presence. I would have liked Walter Matthau in it. He would have played into the existential crisis but even so, it is simply slight. Actually, the best version I can imagine would have it starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day and going for full broad laughs.

In "Clone," the Al parker bio, there's a story about someone setting up a "date" for Al and Tom.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I think I'd rather be subjected to waterboarding.

[quote]Wait a minute - someone down thread actually said Top Gun was a classic movie?

Yes. It used to be considered one of the biggest "quintessential 1980s" films until the running joke recently about how homoerotic it is.

TOP GUN is an iconic B-Movie.

It’s a genre classic of it’s kind with a movie star performance.

I don’t get the acclaim for Vertigo.

This is a tangent, but I frankly resent young people’s recent fetishizing of 80s movies as “great.” Most movies from the 1980s that are being revisited as great cinema (especially John Hughes movies) are of a time, but they are not “great” films when compared with actual great films such as those made by Kubrick.

'80s movies blew chunks. The badness started with JAWS and the blockbuster expectations it standardized.

80s teen movies make me feel embarrassed for the human race, I swear to God. They’re the least common denominator of least common denominators. And then there are all the women-in-distress stalker movies that always made me feel embarrassed for the talented actresses who starred in them. From the Hand that Rocks the Cradle to Fatal Attraction to Ghost to Sleeping with the Enemy to Unlawful Entry to Single White Female, they’re all the same. Poor, victimized woman is terrorized; usually another woman is insane with mad lust; and somewhere in between is a man who saves the day and a predatory rapey devil man who has to be stabbed after he is shot, shot after his throat is cut, his throat cut after he is whacked over the head, whacked over the head after he is poisoned, poisoned after he is arrested and escapes from a maximum-security prison just to run through the woman’s house and rip off her panties. The 1980s were the worst.

I love WSS. Love it! I can watch that opening intro a million times and never tire of it. Admittedly the dialogue and the lyrics are dated, but the music and the choreography is wonderful. I think if they really do intend to remake it they need to make sure they put it in the context of the time in which it happened: Late 50's. Because then it makes sense. it's only "dated" when viewed in the modern context. Tony and Maria at the dance in the gym for instance. And the impact of technology on our modern culture cell phones, computers, etc.

Wanted to add that the sacarine music and lyrics of the typical broadway musical was upended with the jazzy, modern sound of Lenny.

There's a new audio recording from noted homosexualists Michael Tilson-Thomas and Cheyenne Jackson.

When speaking about a century-long history of movies, I’d really appreciate it if instead of writing TWO or AAE or N, you’d take the few extra seconds to write The Wizard of Oz or All About Eve or Network. Because otherwise, with all due respect, only you have any idea what the fuck you are talking about.

Actual films made by Kubrick? Which Kubrick films besides Dr. Strangelove? The Shining was all cinematography and Jack Nicholson mugging.

"It looked like a regular MGM movie to me - nothing special."

R206 It was Columbia.

2001, Eyes Wide Shut

I'm a Kubrick fan so I love Paths of Glory, Lolita, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. I have yet to see 2001 and I didn't like Strangelove, but I think many of his films can be argued to be classic.

[quote]They’re the least common denominator of least common denominators.

Did you mean lowest common denominator?

I mean least, Mr. Know-it-all.

People around here are so anal retentive.

R222 I'm interested that you refer to 'Westerns and early American struggle pics'.

I'ver never heard someone use that expression before.

What period does that refer to? The 1930s Depression? The Revolutionary War? The Civil War?

Least common denominator = lowest common denominator.

Breakfast at Tiffany's. On top of the unrealistic story and Hepburn being too old for the role, the supposedly great style of the female lead statements now comes off as dated. The beehive hair may look better on another person, but it emphasizes Audrey's oversized head making her look like a lollypop. The pale weak brows and thin lips also made Audrey's face looked hardened and boxy. The Moon River score is the only enduring sign of quality from that production, but a song alone can't carry a movie. Definitely not good enough a film to be considered a classic, and definitely did not capture AH in her gamine prime.

But here in DL I learned that lollypop head is beloved by US filmakers

I bought the James Dean Collection - lol - all three of his movies. He is a terrible and embarrassing "actor". He acts like a total tard in Rebel Without A Cause and I was embarrassed for buying the collection. It was so bad I never even bothered watching the other two. By today's standards he is super gay and feminine. Why he was considered legendary is just a fucking joke.

^ I partly agree.

'Rebel Without A Cause' is a cliche and his father is Mister Magoo.

'Giant' is so overlong, the house, seems utterly unrealistic and the stars have NIL acting ability.

'East of Eden' is the most credible (or at least would be more credible after editing). The hero is so pretty that I'm sure Kazan was a closet case.

James Dean tended to over-emote... badly. In Giant he was all tics and odd mannerisms and mumbled lines that I tend to prefer Rock and Liz's more traditional acting, despite being bland, weaker actors.

I can't believe the disdain for CASABLANCA which gets better every time I watch it. I'll say the same for MILDRED PIERCE.

They are both iconic stories told simply and artfully which seems only to create multi-layered themes within each film. I think both have actually grown as far as worthiness to their reputations.

I try to distinguish "classics" from "popular at the time".

Agree with the hate for breakfast at tiffanys I loathed it. First and last movie I'll watch with Audrey, she's as dull as dishwater.

Audrey's acting peaked in Roman Holiday. She came to be increasingly mannered after Sabrina, where she then employed bambi eyes, baby voice and thrust out hips to play the same "iconic gamine" in almost all her subsequent movies.

Her looks and style peaked between Sabrina and Funny Face, before going downhill as her chainsmoking and under-eating aged her prematurely. By 1961 at age 31, AH looked at least 40 in Breakfast at Tiffany's. She plummeted to like 90 pounds at 5ft 8 then. Even with the heavy diffusion lens and perfect camera works, you can tell her skin is gaunt and cracked. No way could she pass for a 20 yr old party girl then.

also suffered from a bad movie script that changed an interesting novel for the worse.

I was just looking at a few newspaper cutouts that someone shared on Facebook from the 80's and it was shocking to see how many watchable, enjoyable, or downright brilliant films were out at the same time. You could rarely lose then it seemed. These days, I'm lucky to find 3 movies a year I genuinely enjoy in theaters. I don't think the 80's were just John Hughes movies and slasher flicks, although, there was nothing wrong with those. Well, some of them.

All the Italian gangster movies, Godfathers and Goodfellas and so on. Tedious. Anyone who doesn’t love Some Like it Hot is insane.

Some Like it Hot has a smart, witty script. But Jack Lemmon is the only one of the three leads who truly drew the laughs.

I asked because I've never heard "least common denominator" as a figure of speech in reference to people, regardless of the technical definition. I've always heard people denigrated as the "lowest common denominator."

Unpopular opinion here: Judy Holliday in BORN YESTERDAY had dead eyes and was too hard faced to be attractive. Aside from that, like the leading man of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, she is not a film actor. William Holden made that film.

^^^ Accurately said. I never got her. Dead eyes, annoying voice. Glad her film career went no further or she would have ruined many a glorious film.

Indeed. Her Oscar was a travesty.

It’s not a bad film. But I thought Serpico would be mind blowing

I hit POST accidentally. Without a great screenplay it seems Sidney Lumet didn’t have a great handle on pacing. My fave bits were Al Pacino wearing all those disguises.

such a great thread!

Citizen Kane is beautifully made and shot, but a big, dull movie. I can marvel at the craft on display, but I feel absolutely nothing when I watch it. It's remarkably cold. It's neither a movie I love nor hate. It just...is. Like a film school experiment.

R147, 2001 is not based on the novel. Clarke wrote it after working on the screenplay.

12 Angry Men.

12 One Dimensional Stereotypes would be more accurate. Not one unpredictable moment in the whole movie.

Casablanca, Citizen Kane, How Green Was My Valley, Born Yesterday,

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY was unbearable.

[quote]The Le Cruset Abuse Troll

You can't even spell "Creuset." Troll, my ass.

GONE WITH THE WIND owns this thread.

I love James Dean. He was different.

Little Women- all of them.

I hate Little Women, all of them, and the book.

How green was my valley

It is worthy of the status, and Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson were excellent, but SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY suffers from John Schlesinger syndrome. And the dull Murray Head.

It’s Mancini’s soundtrack and the opening scene that lift “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to classic status.

R259 It was a Golden Age!

I couldn’t sit through Au Hasard Balthasar. I feel so guilty for that.

Sal Mineo was a far superior actor than James Dean. He was a natural. I found Dean hammy and creepy.

Gunga Din. Sam Jaffe...

"Shane"

An 80s classic - Ferris Bueller's Day Off. When the best thing about your movie is Charlie Sheen, then things need to be reviewed.

I'm not sure if it's now considered a "classic", but I thought "The English Patient" was absolute horse shit. I saw it with my now ex, and the whole time, I kept thinking of Suzanne's line from "Designing Women", "I could be home watching 'Green Acres'right now."

Agree, r280, about "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", a favorite film of mine, but Murray Head is so bland and unremarkable that it's hard to fathom how Jackson's and Finch's characters would be so obsessively in love with him.

You should, R283!

[quote]So much was stolen from other sources, but HP is always touted as unique and original.

If I were alive, I’d have sued that Rowling bitch back into poverty. As for the idea of a school that teaches witchcraft, you’re welcome.

Viva Zapta!

I first saw it over 30 years ago and didn't care for it. Decided to rewatch a couple of days and felt the same about them film.

Casablanca, Citizen Kane, How Green Was My Valley, Kramer vs. Kramer, Out of Africa.

r288, I like THE ENGLISH PATIENT for Juliette Binoche and for Naveen Andrews in the prime of his beauty. But Ralph Fiennes never convinces me as a lover, ever. And Anthony Minghella never convinces me 100% outside of TRULY MADLY DEEPLY.

Speaking of which, I didn't like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY because Matt Damon was not up to the task. What a self-pitying performance.

I really dislike all Wes Anderson movies.

Good thing M has never made any classic movies or they’d be all over this list.

One reason IAWL was shown on TV so frequently was that for a long time it was in the public domain. Originally independently produced by Capra and screenwriter Ruskin, it was not released by a studio. Subsequently, the copyright lapsed, and, like other such films, like Royal Wedding and even some vintage Disney cartoons, TV stations could show it often.

Except for a few moments, though, I always found IALW mawkish, manipulative, and overlong.

And, frankly, I’ve never enjoyed SLIH, maybe because I heard about all the funny moments in it before I ever saw the movie. But, for all the exasperation she caused, damn, but the camera loves MM! And she has some wonderful moments. The rest of the cast is all caricatures, and I found Curtis imitating Cary Grant just went on way too long. Never worked for me.

And I’ve only been able to watch T7YI once, which was enough. Never cared for professional shlub Ewell in anything.

And I never liked It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, which I saw in Cinerama as a roadshow when it first came out. Just too self-conscious and forced. Three hours of unending greed, thankfully with an intermission.

I like the first half of GWTW better. After the war, I got bored with self-centered Scarlett’s one-track love life.

I loved WSS when it first cane out, but, as pointed out above, the coy language hasn’t aged well. And I can’t see a remake ever being able to top the dances in the original. That will be a quaint conceit.

I love Vertigo, knowing full well the plot’s full of holes. But it’s gorgeous to watch, and that masterpiece of a Bernard Herrmann score gives it magic. (Interestingly, Herrmann never liked it, saying the setting should have been New Orleans, as in the book, and that Stewart was miscast. I mean, do we really care about Mr. Smith’s love life?)

Jimmy Stewart as a leading man is laughable.

R298-By VERTIGO he already seemed like an old man.

I agree about Breakfast at Tiffany's. Its Dreadful. I however absolutely disagree about The Seven Year Itch. Monroe's " magic " is on full display and it's a delightful period piece. Almost a cartoon. The moment Marilyn appears on screen its becomes a fun experience. You can't take your eyes off her. Even though she is a secondary character, she owns this film. Its pure kodachrome drenched dazzle. I love it.

[Reply18] Fuck off you bitter lump of hoof. Monroe is a icon. You however are a tedious bore.

For 288

I meant R288

R297, I realize that you must be far too busy to type out the full names of the movies and plays that you mention, but I am far too busy (and perhaps too drunk) to attempt to decipher your lazy acronyms. If you will make the effort to decode your post, I will make the effort to read it.

"Dracula" - 1932.

It was famous for being Universal's first movie that kicked off the horror boom of the 30s, but after the first scene of Renfield meeting Dracula, the rest of the movie is stagey, static, talky, and action free to include Dracula's staking at the end....

Hammer's remake in 1958 "Horror of Dracula" should've gotten the status Lugosi's version received. It probably didn't help that Christopher Lee was publicly critical of his own Dracula movies once it became a series.

It cost 1.6 million to make in 1954 and grossed 12 million in the US alone during its first run. That was a hell of a profit for fox in the 1950 s. It was so popular that fox re released it as a feature the following year for a second go around at the box office. It was a smash success with the audience and viewed as a classic comedy................I didn t think it was all that great either but I thought MM was very good in it and think its mostly changed tastes by the public between then and now that accounts for the perception.

Wuthering Heights. I have enjoyed both leads in other projects, but Olivier was too hammy and Oberon too placid and simpering...total misfire.

Star Wars.

I just don't get it.

And Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill were "ugly" in that 70s kind of way.

E.T.

I also don't get what is so great about it.

Sorry.

R298, Jimmy Stewart was very handsome in the 30s and early 40s.

Bump

Titanic, Blue Velvet, Star Wars (all of them)

Blade Runner (it's great to look at but that's it), Raging Bull, The Departed

Most of David Lynch's movies

All of Terrence Malick's work except for BADANDS.

I love RAGING BULL.

Titanic has some really bad dialogue, but the sets and special effects are first rate. As is Kate Winslet’s performance. She carries the film.

I really don't get most of the Universal monster movies. I love horror films and even horror films from that same era, but those always felt a little phony to me. They're never terribly exciting, suspenseful, or scary.

The 400 Blows did not live up to its name.

I don't understand how anyone could find fault with "Casablanca".

R319, lol.

It is a literal translation of a French idiom, and thus makes absolutely no sense in English.

R321 akin to LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE? I still have no idea what it means.

R147, you do realize that the novel of 2001 was written after the film was completed?

Night of the Hunter — tame, dull horror film.

R323 I thought it was written concurrently with the screenplay?

R322, "faire les 400 coups" in French might be translated in English as "to go to town" or "to raise hell" ....to make a lot of mischief, basically.

So, the movie could have been called "Raising Hell."

I think it would have been better to just find another title entirely!

R322, sorry....The 400 Blows = Les 400 Coups, in French.

The translation doesn't work for a bunch of other reasons.

The word "coup" in French is used in lots and lots of idioms (coup d'etat, coup de theatre, coup de pied...and the word "blow" in English has two or three literal meanings, one of them being sexual. Just not a good translation by any means....

Similarly, "A Bout de Souffle" would be better translated as "Out of Breath" rather than "Breathless"!

R322, I really liked that movie "Like Water For Chocolate" when I first saw it.

Silly title, until you see the movie....but it was about cooking so it got a pass.

I loathe "Casablanca". Ingrid Bergman was such an irritating actress. And Bogart was so ugly.

Mary Poppins

R329, I know, right. She is so bland.

R330, what?

I love Poppins! Even as an adult! The music is lovely!

And I'm not British, so Van Dyke's faux Cockney accent does not bother me.

I love DL. Only here would I read the score of WSS is cheesy. And the choreography dated. Kind of like saying the choreography in a Fred Astaire movie is dated which I guess it is in a certain sense but...

2001 is based on Clarke's The Sentinel which indeed is before the movie and was what inspired Kubrick. I hated the movie as a boy but saw it years later on the large curved screen of NY's Rivoli on Broadway which was one of the great movie experiences of my life. People say it was even better on the huge Capitol Cinerama screen across from the Winter Garden where it opened in N.Y. Oh for a time machine. Anyway I have no desire to see it on TV

.

The Sentinel was indeed written before the film, but that is not what we were discussing. It is a short story, and does not have the feature discussed above.

The novel 2001 is very different from The Sentinel. It is a novel written either concurrently or after the screenplay of the film.

[quote]It cost 1.6 million to make in 1954 and grossed 12 million in the US alone during its first run. That was a hell of a profit for fox in the 1950 s. It was so popular that fox re released it as a feature the following year for a second go around at the box office. It was a smash success with the audience and viewed as a classic comedy

It didn't do as well as hoped and reviewers were disappointed, as was everyone involved of the making of it. The ONLY good thing about it was Marilyn.

[quote]I love DL. Only here would I read the score of WSS is cheesy. And the choreography dated. Kind of like saying the choreography in a Fred Astaire movie is dated which I guess it is in a certain sense but...

The dancing is dated. Or more specifically, tired. No one was mentioned Fred and Ginger being dated because they are not, they tinkle like crystal.

R335 What? "The Seven Year Itch" was a smash hit and well-received by critics. It solidified Marilyn's status as a bankable movie star.

Thanks [304]: Though these acronyms have been used on DL many times, I’ll be happy to translate them for you when you’re finished drinking.

Though that may take some time.

La La Land

[quote]'Giant' is so overlong, the house, seems utterly unrealistic and the stars have NIL acting ability.

Not to mention the make-up. James Dean's "old" make=up looks like something out of a bad high school play, and wtf is with every Mexican in the movie walking around looking like they have brown shoe polish smeared on their faces?

[quote]No one was mentioned Fred and Ginger being dated because they are not, they tinkle like crystal.

But by the time Fred made [italic]Finian’s Rainbow[/italic] and [italic]The Towering Inferno[/italic], he could barely tinkle at all

Those disaster movies of the 1970s were major shitfests!

I have heard that some folks love "Love Actually" and consider it a Christmas classic.

That film has an amazing cast, but it sucks beyond all suckage.

Bump

R343, "amazing" is an adjective that has little meaning. It tells the reader that you were amazed by the cast, but doesn't explain how or why that result occurred. Were the members surprisingly beautiful (or ugly)? Or were they shockingly talented (or amateurish)? Was it extremely odd to see them all together (if so, why)? You see what I mean (I hope).

Vertigo. I don't get it. Jimmy Stewart is such a creeper trying to turn Kim Novak into his idea of the perfect woman and then it just...ends. No one ever stops and is like "hey, what's wrong with you, you nasty ass?" You never feel like he learns that he went too far or did anything wrong. He's made out to be the victim the entire time. Honestly, De Palma handled a similar story better in Body Double. At least that movie seems to kinda know that its leading man is a creeper and has Melanie Griffith not taking shit from anyone.

R343 I agree it’s overrated. Too many stories that go nowhere or are unresolved.

R346, I think the film trusts the audience to figure out that something is wrong with Stewart's character without someone have to come out and say it.

R345, by "amazing" I meant a bunch of A-List UK actors whom I consider very talented.

Sorry for the imprecise nature of my language.

R346 I love both Body Double and Vertigo but you have picked up on the fact that De Palma doesn't just idolize and imitate Hitchcock, he also reinterprets his work.

Thank you, R349. Saying "the cast was very talented" instead of saying "the cast was amazing" would have communicated your meaning. You're a big man for realizing the error of your ways and apologizing.

R351, no problem. Thanks for pointing out my error.

I try to be brief on DL, but I don't mean to use overly familiar or imprecise language!

That is what I love about DL: poor grammar is not tolerated! Try pointing out someone's grammar or punctuation error on another site! The results will not be pretty!

Serpico.

Marilyn was beautiful and it was a fantasy movie for middle aged men...I did not see it as a comedy at all.

Saturday Night Fever.

Loved the soundtrack however.

I did't enjoy "Citizen Kane." For me it was an ordeal to sit through. I guess I should give it another chance.

"The Big Lebowski" seems to be a modern classic or a cult classic, but I couldn't wait for it to be over. A Big Letdown for me.

Schindler's List. Spielberg can't make a movie without force feeding the audience.

Anything by Sidney Lumet. His movies all have that dates 70s thing going on. They are a fucking CHORE to sit through. They all seem to start off strong and then they just drag on and on and on.

R17 you have odd taste. Fritz Lang's M is a masterpiece. Max Ophuls's Madame de… is one of the most elegant films ever made. Are you gay? If you are gay, do you shop only JC Penney? Something is missing in your brain.

Schindler’s List has its problems R237, but I’ll go for an even more controversial position and say that E.T. the Extraterrestrial veers between sentimentality and creepiness and the love for it is only a product of nostalgia.

Also, the only reason that people like Saving Private Ryan is that they forgot everything after the opening scene of the movie but remember they hate Gwyneth Paltrow.

Blade Runner and Les Quatre Cents Coups are poetic films. I sometimes teach film to STEM nerds and I cry when we watch Blade Runner. Its a film that exists outside time, the people are all gorgeous, the music is fabulous, it has some mythic tones and a child can appreciate it's dramas.

Blade Runner seems very overrated to me. I watched it in 4k and it is a stunning looking movie. But there's barely a story there (but there is plenty of symbolism). The characters are also very dull.

[quote] E.T. the Extraterrestrial veers between sentimentality and creepiness and the love for it is only a product of nostalgia.

I feel like Michael Jackson probably played ET on repeat in Neverland Ranch.