Flicks You WANT to Like But Just CAN'T

[divasahm]

Jan 21, 2010 0:36:25 GMT -4 @dwanollah said:

Also, Pete's Dragon was kind of cheesy as well.

Like that's not part of its charm?! I lurve that movie, I can't help myself. Also, Sugarbear and I recite whole chunks of it, and are known to break into "A dragon, a dragon, I SWEAR I saw a dragon!" at opportune times.

I have fond memories of singing "Candle On the Water" in eighth-grade choir. Disney's music stayed good much longer than the actual movies did during that dry spell in the mid '70s-early '90s.

[Mutagen]

Jan 20, 2010 17:48:33 GMT -4 @jtalia said:

I was the only little girl I knew who did not like The Princess Bride.

I admit I haven't seen it since I was a kid. But the rats freaked me out.

This is me with The Neverending Story. Everyone else in my age group is like "This was awesome! Childhood memories!" But I think this was the single most upsetting movie I ever watched as a child. And it wasn't one of those movies that was scary at the time, but later I got used to it - I was just so strongly repelled by it that I never wanted to go near it again. I hated it when the other kids in class would beg to see it on movie day.

My rational brain thinks "Well, the filmmakers did something right if they got this strong of a reaction from me," but my irrational lizard brain is still just angry at the movie.

[crankykate]

I have never, ever, ever understood the worship out there for A Christmas Story. It's a pleasant enough movie, I guess, but nothing special and certainly not worth watching on an infinite loop over Christmas. Same with The Princess Bride -- I saw it in college on the recommendation of, oh, everyone, and came out thinking "That was it? That was it?"

Also: HERESY ALERT: Blade Runner. Yes, I understand that the visionary and ground-breaking set design has informed legions of dystopias on film. I understand that it's supposed to be a classic. However, by the end of that thing I didn't honestly care whether Deckard was a replicant, a human, a figment of someone's imagination, a zombie, or a unicorn. I just wanted it to be over. (I read an article around the time that the SUPER FINAL TOTALLY AWESOME NO THIS WAS REALLY WHAT I WAS THINKING NO REALLY Director's Cut came out in which the author described watching Blade Runner with his wife, who had never seen it before. He said that toward the end, when Roy Batty is on the rooftop, releasing the bird into the rain in a scene of great emotional power, he happened to glance over at his wife, and she was weeping...with laughter. That sort of summed up Blade Runner for me. I knew what I was supposed to be feeling. I just didn't.)

[chonies]

Jan 21, 2010 9:38:25 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

Jan 20, 2010 17:48:33 GMT -4 @jtalia said:

I was the only little girl I knew who did not like The Princess Bride.

I admit I haven't seen it since I was a kid. But the rats freaked me out.

This is me with The Neverending Story. Everyone else in my age group is like "This was awesome! Childhood memories!" But I think this was the single most upsetting movie I ever watched as a child. And it wasn't one of those movies that was scary at the time, but later I got used to it - I was just so strongly repelled by it that I never wanted to go near it again. I hated it when the other kids in class would beg to see it on movie day.

My rational brain thinks "Well, the filmmakers did something right if they got this strong of a reaction from me," but my irrational lizard brain is still just angry at the movie.

Auugghh!!! Get out of my head! My sisters, who are both younger than me, would watch this constantly, and I just couldn't take it.

As far as the lizard brain reaction, that is the question I struggle with in re: Boondock Saints (which, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I really didn't care about liking one way or another, so it may be disqualified from this discussion), Good Will Hunting (which I had expected to like, but found it messed up, cliche and pretty dumb overall), and, well...multitudes of other films. In fact, this topic came up in my book club the other night. Several of the members are artists or are married to artists, and they said if a piece gets a reaction at all, the art and artist have succeeded. I didn't pipe in with my amendment to their serene philosophy.

[Mutagen]

Jan 21, 2010 10:23:18 GMT -4 chonies said:

In fact, this topic came up in my book club the other night. Several of the members are artists or are married to artists, and they said if a piece gets a reaction at all, the art and artist have succeeded. I didn't pipe in with my amendment to their serene philosophy.

I normally do like movies that give me a strong reaction, even if it's a strong negative reaction. For example, Lars von Trier movies are hard to watch but I have an odd kind of appreciation for them (although I haven't seen the latest one with Willem Dafoe and That Scene). Maybe it's being an adult versus being a child, I don't know.

[dwanollah]

Jan 21, 2010 8:43:24 GMT -4 divasahm said:

Jan 21, 2010 0:36:25 GMT -4 @dwanollah said:

Like that's not part of its charm?! I lurve that movie, I can't help myself. Also, Sugarbear and I recite whole chunks of it, and are known to break into "A dragon, a dragon, I SWEAR I saw a dragon!" at opportune times.

I have fond memories of singing "Candle On the Water" in eighth-grade choir. Disney's music stayed good much longer than the actual movies did during that dry spell in the mid '70s-early '90s.

Me toooooo!

And really, I'm aware that this flick (plus ten million others, including Star Wars), prolly wouldn't mean much to me if I hadn't seen 'em as a kid.

But.

THOU SHALT NOT SLAM HELEN REDDY!! Passama-what-y, now?

Same with The Princess Bride -- I saw it in college on the recommendation of, oh, everyone, and came out thinking "That was it? That was it?"

Yeah, I mean, there's no denying Inigo Montoya, and it's got some great one-liners, but overall...?

So many of these OMG I LOVED IT! movies are about who you watch it with and how it integrates, I guess, into your life after. I can imagine what today's audiences would do with The Jerk and Airplane!, but really, we're talkin' thirty YEARS of family inside jokes and catchphrases!

[Deleted]

Oh man, I forgot about Blade Runner! Yeah I fell asleep like 30 minutes into it. I tried, but sooo boring and I just do not care!

[normadesmond]

Harrison Ford doesn't like Blade Runner either. I like it, but more for the visual design and atmosphere: the story itself is weak. The plot doesn't make that much sense and if you think about it too long, the whole story falls apart.

[ennui]

Jan 16, 2010 22:43:56 GMT -4 @normadesmond said:

Casablanca.

Ingrid Bergman looks lovely and Humphrey Bogart has charisma. But the story is so cliched, it's like every romance movie cliche you've seen a hundred times all packed together into one movie. I just plain don't like it.

But was it cliche in 1942?

Me: Notorious, with Carey Grant and Ingrid Bergman. I keep hearing how it's one of the greatest films ever. I've tried to watch it three times, and I can't seem to make it past the first 30 minutes.

[Deleted]

I think the problem with a lot of these old movies is that those of us who are too young to have seen them when they were new know them so well because they've been ripped-off and parodied to hell and back by the time we get to them. I've never actually watched Casablanca but from all the clips and parodies and whatnot I feel like I have, so I have zero desire to actually sit down and watch it all the way through.