Did you ever watch a movie you used to love...

Bladerunner. I thought i used to like it, but just watched it and it was slow and dark and dreary and blah. Yes, i know thats what the director wanted, but i didnt like it at all.

The Evil Dead for me.
It still has some good "camp" value, but I actually thought that it was scary when it first came out.

TMNT 2 was pretty hard to watch when I rented a few days before seeing the new one. TMNT 1 was till pretty worth it. There's a few more I hardly remeber but the problem is I can enjoy B movies. As long as a movie has at least a style to it I can watch it. I find teh music I listened to as a kid more annoying that the movies I used to watch. I can't beileve I listened to ICP.

Invaders From Mars. I loved this as a kid and could never find it on TV since that time (we're talking decades), and then they came out with the remake. Just wasn't the same. You simply can't find the original anywhere on TV, and then I finally found it on VCR and bought it. I should have left well enough alone. Terrible acting, terrible everything. I fell asleep it was so bad. I always thought IFM was my favorite sci-fi, but after viewing it, I regret not letting that little kid in me remembering it for what it was the time I first saw it.

When this happens to me, it's almost always a horror film that lets me down. Evil Dead was one, Phantasm was another.

This also happened to my wife and me with Fraggle Rock. We both had such fond memories and couldn't even get through the first disc on DVD.

The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother by Gene Wilder. I waited years for that one to hit DVD and I had fond memories of how hilarious it was. It does have a couple chuckles but mostly it's painfully unfunny. And also Silent Running. I loved it as a kid but as an adult it offends my sensibilities like being burned in the brain with a white hot fork.

I thought I would have the same reaction when I got a copy of Beastmaster recently on DVD.

Wrong.

That movie is more awesome today than it was in the 80s.

I just wish I could do the hawk-call better...

I know my tastes in movies has changed. In college I really liked Billy Madison, and Tommy Boy. Now I doubt I'd laugh too hard at either.

What I frequently find is that a DVD I get of an old favorite turns out to be a movie that, though a good film, had worn out its welcome back in the day and I didn't realize it. Ghostbusters is one. It's really a funny movie but I realized I had exceeded my number of watches of it (fortunately it was use and defective and I was able to swap it for something else). I don't know how many more times I can watch Aliens either. The only one of the Indiana Jones movies I had any use for was, oddly enough, The Temple of Doom, but recent viewings revealed the horrible chemistry of Ford and Capshaw (in fact, the older I get the less tolerant I am of Harrison Ford movies in general).

Then there are old movies that you only saw once or twice and bought to check out again and found their time has passed: Serpico and Little Big Man spring to mind for me, and a lot of the old Robert Altman films that were once so revolutionary.

There could easily be a companion thread to this of "Movies you saw and hated and then saw again and finally saw the light".

200 Motels - I must have seen it 200 times at various midnight movie and other showings as a teen and had every bit of dialog memorized. At the time I thought it was hip and brilliant. Now it looks like some first year movie school project loaded with shock value and little else.

Yes Evil Dead is the one that does it for me also, My friends from years back use to always crank that movie out, watched it on a Hi-Def channel recently and I was thinking of what idiots we were....

Movie I use to watch thats still worth watching is " Crossroads " with the Karate Kid dude.

Even Sam Rami didn't think Evil Dead held up that well after he made it- that's why he remade it as Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn

Billy Jack. The Trial of Billy Jack. Billy Jack Goes to Washington.

Zardoz

(1974 -- Sean Connery) I was blown away by this movie the first time I saw it. Found it decades later and rewatched it with my wife. Total letdown. She wondered what I had been smoking the first time I saw it.

Hey, it was the 70's....

I kinda went opposite

I used to like Evil Dead and Blade Runner, now I dont.

I used to hate Phantasm - and lets face it, the acting - P.U! But theres an originality here that has caused me to like the entire series moreso than Evil Dead. I still kinda like Army of Darkness tho..

"The Longest Day" and "Battle of the Bulge". Watched both all the time as a kid. While good for their day (still like them in a campy sort of way) they have now been eclipsed by a country mile with "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers".

Jim

How about "Night of the Living Dead"? When I saw it in high school it was the most shocking, repulsive terrifying thing I've ever seen. My 11 yo kids watched it and were alternating between laughter and extreme boredom, with the boredom winning out. Amazing how far the envelope's been pushed since then.

Do TV movies count?

I remember seeing on the old ABC Movie of the WeeK a Western called "The Over the Hill Gang." Finally found it on DVD. Maybe it was because it is a HORRID transfer (looks like it was bootlegged right off of a TV when it was originally shown 30 years ago!) , but it just wasn't the same.

Except when Chill Wills says "I'm not one to squabble over the rules, but...seven aces in one deck...that's a LOT of aces!"

Tom

Not a movie but I bought a couple sets of SCTV seasons and the thrill was gone for much of it, it did not age as well as I'd hoped...

I bought a couple sets of SCTV seasons and the thrill was gone for much of it, it did not age as well as I'd hoped...

I reluctantly agree. It had a melancholy feel, almost as if it were filmed in an empty studio, late at night (there was no audience).

Me too on SCTV. I still like it, but it wasn't the funniest damn thing I had ever seen any more, which it seemed to be back when I first saw it. It feels rambling and unfocused a lot of the time. I strongly suspect that a lack of alteration to the basic state of consciousness may be at the root of the matter...

Ugh... I hate to admit it, but yes, I too was horribly let down watching old SCTV. The skits that seemed so fresh & "non-SNL" just seemed drawn out and in desparate need of an editor... I am glad I'm not the only one who's innocence is lost... it was once my favorite show.

I used to be real bullish on I'm Gonna Get You Sucka.

Watched it again recently and realized it's just not that damned funny.

All That Jazz. The dance scenes were still good, but the story was just awful.

The old Hammer films got me as a kid.
I try to watch them now and they aren't the least bit scary.
I still have a lot of fond and frightening memories of these though.

The Hammer films certainly aren't scary any more but I still love them! Especially Lee's Dracula movies and Rasputin. Oh, and the Quartermass movies.

Jekyll and Hyde...Together Again. Yikes...if ever there were a 420-required movie, this is it. In college, it was a lot funnier...naturally.

After seeing a number of people mentioning their disappointment with the old SCTV episodes, I think part of the problem is what's been released so far.

The box sets, except for a tiny "Best of" collection, consist of the NBC years. To me, that was it's most uneven and lacking period. The move from 30 to 90 minutes was detrimental to the show. Material from the 30 minute seasons was usually sharp, focused, and eclectic. While some of the sketches were misfires, they usually didn't last that long, and soon it was off to another topic.

Once they hit NBC, gags were stretched out long past their shelf life. We started to see the same characters over and over in sketches that went nowhere, becoming tedious time-fillers. What was once a well-written and snappy show became a bloated shadow of itself, with only occasional flashes of what it had once been.

If they were ever to release the first season episodes, and more of the second season, I think you might have a different perspective.

I don't know if we'll ever see those though. With last year's best of compilation (which excluded most of the best stuff), I doubt they'll be released anytime soon.

But, if they ever are, take another look. You may just find what you were looking for.

Scott

What is "420" and why is it required to watch a stupid movie?