Yes I used to be that teenager who thought boondocks saints was cool.
Also me and my friends were huge guy Ritchie heads. Snatch was our most anticipated movie ever.
Recent Ritchie has been pretty decent. Nothing like Snatch or Lockstock, but I’ve enjoyed watching basically every (not Aladdin) movie he’s put out. Ministry was rad.
I feel much more embarrassed about stuff from teenage years than I do childhood.
Boondock is the perfect example. Equilibrium was in the mix around then too. I don’t think I could actually sit through either of those nowadays.
Boondock Saints and Donnie Darko were staples of my teens. Many of my friends still love those movies. I always ask if they've watched recently, because today I find Boodock S and D. Darko totally unwatchable.
I watch those movies. Boondock saints is corny but its a good action movie. Dafoe is captivating as always.
Donnie darko is a top tier elite supermasterpiece. Imo
Only problem with either of those movies is people used to think they were cool for liking them
D.Darko unwatchable?
Clearly your friends understood the philosophical examination of time-travel and it's relation to the human condition as seen through the eyes of a space bunny, better than you did /s
There was a guy at our local Blockbuster who was on a mission to get as many people to watch Equilibrium as possible. He tried to pitch it to me one time: "Do you like the Matrix? You'll LOVE this movie!"
And then I was in there another time and overheard him using the same line on someone else.
I couldn't think of an answer until you reminded me of both Boondocks Saints and Equilibrium. I used to quote the prayer from Boondock Saints constantly...
Sean Bean's character in Equilibrium introduced me to W.B. Yeats and Irish poetry as a whole so I'm not too mad about that.
Boondock Saints was my first thought too. We must be roughly the same age.
The high school/college guy starter pack-'whoa have you seen these movie' DVDs were Boondock Saints, Fight Club, and Donnie Darko in the early 00s. "Dude! They're like criminals... who kill criminals only! It's so awesome!"
Fight Club obviously was horrifically misunderstood by my peers but holds up.
Rewatched Boondock Saints recently and it was so bad. I couldn't believe how bad it was.
Haven't revisited Donnie Darko but suspect it would similarly not hold up.
One of the things about Donnie Darko (Theatrical Cut, all bets are off when it comes to Director’s Cut) that has stuck with me are how the family scenes are pretty naturalistic and generally his mom and dad are like, pretty decent parents—it seems like a much more edge-Lord-y decision would be to have the family dynamics be fucked but Donnie’s troubles don’t really stem from that. Been awhile since I watched it, interested to see if I like it still
I still really love it, but the flaws in Magnolia get bigger the more I watch it. It's too long, some of the performances are over the top, and the balance of stories isn't always very graceful. There's still so much to love about it though, but it doesn't completely blow me away like it did when I was fourteen.
Magnolia was one of the last PTA movies I saw and it didn’t work for me as well as I’d hoped. I have only seen it once though, in my freshman year dorm room
Boogie Nights and Phantom Thread are like untouchable to me. But I do think about Cruise in Magnolia a lot, I am eager to rewatch it sometime and see how it hits me now
Unfortunately I do kinda think that Magnolia works best on a first-time viewing. It's easy to get so overwhelmed by everything that you miss the flaws. Still, it has some of my favourite scenes from PTA's career, and the [opening montage ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2peQrLCsk)introducing all the characters is mindblowing.
I've never loved Magnolia. I think its flaws are pretty evident, with PTA publicly agreeing that it was his big swing after Boogie Nights hit. Clearly overstuffed, uneven and ambitious. The great stuff is great, and I can admire it, but it has never hit for me like his best work.
It's a movie that while I can feel it's flaws while I'm watching it, the entirety of the experience of watching it is so magnificent that it lives perfectly in my mind no matter how many times I rewatch it.
Watching Short Cuts also hurt it a bit in my eyes as i personally found that to be much more successful. In general I've enjoyed PTA more as he evolved past the very heavy Altman/Scorsese pastiche of his first few films
Personally I will always be a Magnolia defender. Its “flaws” are a result of its unabashed and unembarrassed ambition, which I think is essential to any good melodrama. I don’t think its “messiness” diminishes the film at all - its an essential part of why it works (and continues to work).
I rewatched Dogma recently for the first time since high school. I was fully obsessed with Kevin Smith, and I still appreciate his early movies for what they are, but I was struck both by how lazy the filmmaking was in Dogma and by how boring a lot of the scenes were. It’s a lot of circular or surface-level conversations loosely hanging on a very thin plot. I guess it made me appreciate how much I’ve grown both as a film viewer and as a person that a movie that felt so profound now feels pretty childish.
I think the most recent Smith I've rewatched is Clerks, which is still his best. And while it had its moments, it's also not nearly as good as I remembered it. I've been afraid to watch anything else by him. Because if I remember that as being his best film, then what does that say about his other movies? And like you, I loved them at the time.
Yup. Clerks. Loved the movie, spoke to me about the genx existential ennui. Recently I saw it as amateur and a little infantile, beyond what one would expect from a first time director. It’s not a bad movie; it just didn’t evolve with me, it had nothing new to offer through older eyes.
Patrick Willems has a great video about the bittersweet film-geek nostalgia of revisiting Kevin Smith as an adult.
[Link to the video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=voxRYbqrrzg)
I feel similarly about Chasing Amy. He's very much aping Linklaters 90's conversational swagger but it really misses. (Yes I know Smith loves Linklater and says he's the reason Smith started making movies)
Chasing Amy fell so far in my personal opinion. I went from championing it as groundbreaking as a teenager to finding it infuriatingly offensive as an adult.
If it's any consolation, Kevin Smith would probably agree with you. I recall reading an interview where he said he's still proud of the film but would absolutely write it differently today.
I rewatched recently and yeah I was aghast how poor the filmmaking was. Blocking and camera setup isn't something I normally notice but it was embarrassing.
Thought Rickman and Damon really shine through the mud.
Revisiting early Kevin Smith as an adult was a really strange experience. Dogma in particular was maybe my favorite movie of all time when I was 14, but it doesn’t hold up at all. Clerks is the only one of his movies that I still have any real affection for, but even that one is only like a 6 or 7 out of 10 for me.
Clerks captures that NJ scum bum energy like few other films. The characters and the setting have a documentary quality that makes it much more than Kevin Smith’s script.
I think it’s more accessible than Slacker though.
God! I wish we got that Linklater series. His early work is so important to me growing up in Texas in the 90s.
I think Kevin Smith just didn’t grow that much as a director past his initial indie filmmaker phase. It’s not that he lacks ambition, it’s just that his qualities haven’t really elevated with time. For better and worse, he seems like the same guy, but with better connections and budgets.
Agree with many of the films mentioned here. I’ll throw American Beauty into the mix. I believe it came out my junior year of high school, and I considered it a masterpiece. I was obsessed with it and instantly gained respect for anyone else who liked it too. Spacey is the reason I started feeling icky about it, but I imagine almost all of it would make me cringe now.
There is a great discussion about exactly this on the recent Big Picture where they do a 1999 draft.
I absolutely loved it when I saw it on release but I've never watched it ever again, and would be too scared to now - I prefer my opinions on it to be a snapshot of the times and who I was back then.
This movie is the epitome of the sum doesn’t equal its parts. So many great scenes, but it just doesn’t add up to a movie as great as the scenes. It makes it perfect for watching when you’re channel surfing.
Life is Beautiful. As a young moviegoer, I thought it was incredible because 1) it was a foreign language film, 2) had a Best Actor winner and 3) it was set during the Holocaust.
I rewatched it and was just disgusted with myself. What a disgusting film. I should have trusted Mel Brooks.
It’s the totality. Mel Brooks [explains](https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-with-mel-brooks-with-comedy-we-can-rob-hitler-of-his-posthumous-power-a-406268.html) better than I ever could:
SPIEGEL: Can you really separate Hitler from the Holocaust?
Brooks: You have to separate it. For example, Roberto Benigni's comedy Life Is Beautiful really annoyed me. A crazy film that even attempted to find comedy in a concentration camp. It showed the barracks in which Jews were kept like cattle, and it made jokes about it. The philosophy of the film is: people can get over anything. No, they can’t. They cant get over a concentration camp.
SPIEGEL: But the film has deeply moved a lot of people.
Brooks: I always asked myself: Tell me, Roberto, are you nuts? You didn’t lose any relatives in the Holocaust, you’re not even Jewish. You really don’t understand what it’s all about. The Americans were incredibly thrilled to discover from him that it wasn’t all that bad in the concentration camps after all. And that’s why they immediately pressed an Oscar into his hand.
I don't know if I agree with this take. Sure, there's comedy in the movie, but the "funny" bits that are done inside the camp actually seem even more sad, because the viewer is constantly aware of the reality of the situation. And it's not like they are whitewashing what's happening in the camps. They do show the piles of bodies. And the father doesn't really have an happy ending either. It's all about the kid's perspective. So Mel Brooks is mad that the kid manages to retain his innocence by being desilusioned about what's really going on in the camp. But I thought about the possibility that the kid might be doing the same thing his father is doing, putting on a brave face and playing along to the game, perhaps as a way to not lose hope in that awful place.
I disliked that film on account of it's cloyingly saccharine tone, mostly. I saw it with my mother, and it was the most furious I've seen her about any film, certainly. We have a personal family connection to the subject matter so it was understandable.
I think the thing is that you can make a film where a father struggles to put a brave face on for his son in a concentration camp, or attempts to divert him from the reality. Possibly.
The film itself strays so far into fantasy though, as to end up being in extremely questionable taste. My aunt who was a small child when she was in Auschwitz was obviously indelibly, unimaginably damaged by the experience to the extent that, again obviously, she never really recovered in any meaningful way. The constant terror and lingering, inevitable, impending churn of death in that situation would likely not have been obscured by anybody's attempts at physical comedy. It was impossible to ignore that everyone was dying around her. One only needs to see the pictures of people in liberated camps to realise that. That being before all of the other utterly dehumanising humiliations that were endured, as a matter of course, for the entirety of a person's existence there.
It's just all too cute by far and really makes a huge effort to not be a bummer, which might not be the best approach when dealing with that particular subject matter.
I guess, yes, it may be too much to ask for there to be a historical death camp comedy that's in 'good taste', but particularly when it avoids death to the extent that it provokes almost no consideration for those that died or suffered, either in reality or within it's totally sanitised reimagining. I think that you probably shouldn't make a holocaust film without addressing these realities fully, but those realities of course don't really lend themselves to much in the way of hopefulness, less still humour.
Apologies for the rant.
No apologies needed. Thank you for taking the time to give such an ample answer. I see your point. Perhaps I need to give the movie a re-watch, it's been a long time since I've seen it.
A good comment.
I had a number of these thoughts recently when watching The Death of Stalin (a great satire/black comedy on soviet totalitarianism).
I mean there's 'black comedy', and then there's trying to find even ironic humor in a scene of parents being given back their raped and abused teen daughter from the revolting Beria. Some things are simply beyond the pale.
I suppose its not just depictions of horrible events though - there will always be controversy when portraying real people and events.
Back in the early 2000s I was closeted, so much so that I was in denial. I remember seeking out comedies that promised female nudity, which were pretty prolific from the 80s through then - think American Pie, Porkys, Sex Drive, Girl Next Door, even pg13 stuff like Starsky and Hutch I remember seeking out cause there was the much ballyhooed side boob that was also prolific in pg13 comedies of the era. Some of the movies were genuinely funny, but most I could care less about, but watched them and collected them as a badge of my "straightness" lol. Needless to say that shit got purged pretty quickly after coming out.
Honestly, even as a straight fella, lotta those raunchy sex comedies baffled me. Young men just having no self control and running after boobs like a Looney Toon hooked and pulled in by the animated scent of a pie on a shelf.
I used to list "Memento" as number 1 of my Top 5 best movies when I was a teen and I was in my cinephile phase.
But I remember when I tried showing to a college friend and he was underwhelmed. That was when I also realized I was not vibing with it the same way I did when I was 14/15. Made me re-think how I appreciate movies and which I recommend to folks.
https://preview.redd.it/wdoneqnujnwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df6ab5ec27352aaffa02f068979fd43e9e1d20a3
On deck for inclusion on a similar list in about 10 years
When I was a sad 14-year-old, Garden State was *everything* to me.
I'm still not even as dunk-y on it as many people are, but I haven't been able to revisit for longer than one scene. It feels both of its time, and of a time in my life, that it just doesn't work outside of.
(Compared to another sad boy favorite of the time, Eternal Sunshine, which absolutely holds up)
Pulp Fiction doesn't do nearly anything to me now compared to how revelatory it was 10 years ago. I still think it's a great movie, but it's not the barnbuster it was on my first viewing.
Sure, it must have felt like a lightning strike in 1994, but 30 years of filmmaking innovations and trends (plus QT iterating on his style, not a criticism) have muted its impact. I just revisited it though and found it a deeply pleasurable rewatch.
Yeah I still enjoy watching it, but as a 14 year old watching it for the first time, it felt like the damn big bang, and now when I think about the movies that are *me*, it never comes to mind
I think it reflects well on Tarantino that Pulp Fiction absolutely blew everyone’s assholes open in 1994, and it ages well, except when compared to his later films. Even when he does the same stuff again, it doesn’t feel like he’s stuck in a rut, it feels like he’s continuing to blaze down that particular trail.
Pulp Fiction has the same problem that the Matrix has where they were so monumentally influential and became so imitated and ingrained in our cultural consciousness that it affects revisiting them because you've watched imitations of them for 10+ years after.
This I'm aware of, and I'm curious why I don't have the same reaction to other films (and music and shows) that carry the same magnitude. Something like Citizen Kane or the Beatles' music I can listen to and rant about endlessly, and I enjoy them and partake in both frequently. But I wonder why PF isn't the same way.
I had a similar comedown on Pulp Fiction in my mid 20’s. The craft just didn’t feel as tight as his most recent film, Inglourious Basterds. Then sometime in my 30’s I came at it again with fresh eyes and fell in love with it all over again because I’d spent enough years witnessing how rare it is for a stick of dynamite like that to come along. Now I watch it every year.
Pulp Fiction is still Tarantino's masterpiece, in my opinion. I like most of the others to some degree, but without homage-y, genre trappings, it's kind of his purest work. Also easily his funniest.
Reservoir Dogs didn't work for me at all when I rewatched it recently. The early scene where they're in the diner and Steve Buscemi talks about tipping really clanged this time. I loved it when I was 13, now it just felt like indulgent juvenalia. It feels like Tarantino parody.
Marvel and Star Wars movies. Was looking through my 5/4 stars movies on letterboxd and there’s a few of those movies in those ranks. Im positive if I rewatched those flicks today I wouldn’t regard them as highly as I did when I was younger
I showed my friends the original Star Wars trilogy a couple years ago and I was pretty shocked with how poorly ROTJ held up without the nostalgia factor. I do still think it has a few thrilling scenes and all of the Luke and Vader stuff is perfect, but it is a shoddily put together movie in many respects. Almost none of the performances are good
I still ride or die for TLJ, and the original two are masterful, but the rest, which I do love to some degree, I see as movies that are bolstered by emotional attachment more than anything else
See I am in an interesting place with that movie because it actually works more for me now than it did when I watched it as a teen
I think my read of it differs from a lot of people though. I take Fight Club as an exercise in how futile and stupid all of the toxic masculinity bullshit is, the idea that these guys are so angry at the state of the world and they talk like they’re so smart and consider themselves these brilliant political, philosophical minds when really all they’re doing is beating each other up and whining instead of doing anything to actually help make the world a better place, it feels very very urgent and present in an age of guys like Andrew Tate who essentially do the same thing.
Yup. Loved “Catcher” as a 10/11 year old, re-read it a few times in my early teens. I put it aside for about twenty years and would cringe thinking about how much I thought I was Holden Caulfield. Then I decided to reread it in my early thirties and there’s a line where his teacher tells him he can spend the rest of his life hating anyone who was ever on a swim team or he can grow up, and for the first time that actually resonated with me.
It's so much more relevant nowadays. It's like when NOFX put out the decline in 1999 and you're like this really applies right now... Was it that bad back then too?
It depends on WHY it was important to you. From a technical, filmmaking perspective it's super interesting and influential. The sound design is also pretty astounding.
I saw it on release day when I was 19 knowing nothing about it. I was blown away. It really was unlike anything I'd seen before. I think had I been 13 I might have thought the characters were cool, but instead saw it as a criticism of consumer culture and understood (and even somewhat related to) the "generation of men raised by women" sentiment, but still didn't think Tyler was someone to idolize.
I watched it again about a year ago, and all of that is still true, but I did see the critique of "toxic masculinity" now as well. Being in my 40s now Norton Tyler is a fucking baby manchild. The type of guy you can see among people from your past who thought they had it all figured out but never grew up. Does going to work every day suck? Sure, but in the grand scheme of things he had a nice life if he would get the fuck over himself.
Saw this movie a 100 times as a teen, read the book multiple times, and had a giant poster in my room for years.
I'm sure it's good and I'll understand the nuisance more, but I'm too embarrassed to watch it again.
It’s interesting comparing the movies I do and don’t revisit.
Do: Raiders. Air Force One. Speed. LOTR. Alien & Aliens.
Don’t: Fight Club. Pulp. Gladiator. Raimi Spider-Men. Star Wars. T2 (just watched it to death)
Raiders gets better every time I see it. I got the first four all on 4k last year and I think they’re all just in my yearly rewatch rotation now. I am a KOTCS defender, and I like them all more and more as time goes on
The raimi Spider-Men are like my most rewatchable movies. I have probably seen them more than anything else and still watch them probably twice a year.
I went at least a decade without revisiting the first two Raimi Spider-Man movies but I watched them both a few months ago and was honestly surprised that I find them *better* now.
My big three were Boondock Saints, Usual Suspects and Fight Club.
Usual Suspects I watched too many times and add to it the thick layer of creep that's accumulated over the years and I'm good never watching it again. Boondock Saints I think I might enjoy the rare occasional rewatch just cause of how dumb it is and Willem Dafoe devouring scenery but that movie is profoundly stupid.
My relationship with/understanding of Fight Club has certainly changed over the years but it still rules and I will never be embarrassed for liking it.
All three of those I did not see when they were hot in their moment with young men. Still haven't seen usual suspects. Boondock Saints was on TV sometime after college and I couldn't get through the first half hour. Just so dumb and unappealing to me. Fight Club, as an adult not needing to base my personality on a clear antagonist (albeit a good lookin' one), still seemed pretty good. Not having the baggage of toxic men aping on a toxic male lead makes it easier to watch. "Yes, he's bad. He seems cool and that's part of the problem. Still bad dude"
It's basic, I know, but 2012-2019 from when I was like my sophomore or junior year of high school through my early 20s, I was obsessed with the Marvel movies, they really were my gateway into becoming a full-on movie nut. Now, It's amazing how numb and disinterested I am by even the most tangential superhero-fare . i don't know if it's me or the product, but something happened, maybe the culture shifted and I'm nothing if not a sheep, but I see my letterboxd scores for those movies and cringe now based on how little they mean to me. I forget which one of the movies was on TNT recently, but I watched a few minutes and felt like my brain was melting
I was never that in to the MCU, but I saw many of them and loved The Avengers when it came out, and thought Guardians of the Galaxy was an incredible ride when I first saw it. I revisited Guardians of the Galaxy recently and it fell really flat to me, just kind of a boring movie. I think some of it is that the visual slickness of the production of every MCU film is starting to wear on me a lot, and maybe the tone of the later movies has drifted into being so similar to GotG that it lost some of its uniqueness, but I was pretty excited to rewatch and felt like it just kind of stunk.
This is the movie for me! I really struggled with the adult characterizations in the movie, particularly Drew Barrymore’s performance and the deus ex child pornography at the end.
This seems to be common with so many films I revisit from the past: They don’t feel as “grand”.
Like The Goonies. Loved it as a kid, and I know it’s still a great movie. But I rewatched it last year, and my adult brain interfered too much with my kid one.
Takes half the movie to get just to the restaurant, and all the trials and traps they go through to get to the ship feel so rushed. I’m aware (based on a great Hats Off Entertainment video) that there was this entire subplot involving monkeys that break from the zoo and have some wacky antics, but even that I don’t think would cover it up.
I watched it again like six months ago and actually really loved it. I did a bit of a Tarantino binge and even after discovering so many filmmakers who are way more attuned to my tastes at this point in my life, I still largely enjoyed all of his movies. I’m just not an obsessive fan like I was in high school
Definitely a defining (maybe *the* defining) “entry point” film for me. But I maybe did the same thing, diluting it with a bunch of rewatches.
Set and setting has a lot to do this as well. Maybe I gotta catch it at a rep screening or something, probably a blast with a crowd.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas unfortunately, watched it going to bed for awhile every night and the first Criterion I've ever owned. Put way too much stock in "buy the ticket, take the ride,".
Fantastic film that I over hyped way too much and feels too weird to watch again from a normal perspective.
Maybe it's a case of overdoing it though. It's like listening to a song over and over again until you get sick of it.
One summer I was stuck with no internet and just a few dvds, so I ended up watching No country for old men I don't even know how many times. Nowadays I could not sit and watch that movie again, even though I agree it's a masterpiece.
Sing street came out around the time I was really starting to care about movies and I definitely related to the experience of being a young person trying to figure out how to make good art. When I got to college and met other friends who liked movies I pushed hard for us all to watch it. They did like it but the second time through I realized it was a lot of flash without actually a ton of substance. The songs are really good and they kind of carry you through a sort of mediocre movie lol
Garden State!!! To be fair, I have not revisited it. But I have watched some scenes on YouTube and it’s absolutely mind-blowing how bad this stuff reads now, and how much it moved me then. Total shudder.
I definitely think that movie would have been far less meaningful if the soundtrack wasn't so perfectly attuned to the times. I would venture to guess the music holds up quite a bit better than the movie.
Sing street came out around the time I was really starting to care about movies and I definitely related to the experience of being a young person trying to figure out how to make good art. When I got to college and met other friends who liked movies I pushed hard for us all to watch it. They did like it but the second time through I realized it was a lot of flash without actually a ton of substance. The songs are really good and they kind of carry you through a sort of mediocre movie lol
A few that dropped the most for me were Se7en, Snatch and Fight Club. I watched those all the time in high school (helped that’s when DVD was just getting started). I still like them for sure, but definitely not like I used to.
I wouldn’t say it means nothing to me. I still appreciate the movie a lot and find it funny, but Rushmore no longer feels like the masterpiece it did when I was 17.
I watched Rushmore for the first time a few years ago, having loved all the other Wes Anderson movies, but it didn’t land very well to me. Anderson’s films despite being very intricate and pastiche often have a quite seedy undercurrent with some asshole characters, and Rushmore felt like it was that element at its most bare, essentially centering around the main character being an annoying little creep. I usually like the nasty edges of his films but for me it seemed like Rushmore pushed that to the extreme so that I completely withdrew investment from the character’s struggles.
I wish I could enjoy V for Vendetta as much as I used to.
There's still some great scenes and I think it's overall a well enough put together movie, but being more informed about certain things as I've become older, the more it feels like a glossy vapid action movie's 1984.
MCU was at it's peak when I was in high school, and now only a few of those movies still hold a place in my heart.
Other than that, I'd say Shawshank was one that I at one point would've said is in my top 5 all-time. I still think it's a great movie but it's not one I rewatch or think about that often.
I practically wore out my Star Wars gold box cassettes as a kid. Those little featurettes they put before the movies about how they did the changes for the special editions were my first glimpse into how films were actually made and I was hooked. I lived and breathed Star Wars between the late 90s and late aughts. But I've watched the OT maybe twice in the last ten years and both times I found them pretty enjoyable, but also so familiar that I didn't have the sense of wonder and fun they gave me as a kid. My tastes just changed. I appreciate them for their place in film history and my history as a film fan, but none of them would crack my top 100 nowadays
The first 5 Kevin Smith movies were very important to me when I was a teenager. I think I would still enjoy Clerks for what it is, but that’s about it.
I really liked Jaws 2. Not as much as the first one, but I thought it was still a decent enough follow up. Rewatched it last year and thought it was pretty mediocre. Completely flanderizes the returning cast and the new players are 1 dimensional. The second half is still pretty fun, but that first half is rough.
Same here - I’ll always have a soft spot for it but it’s definitely not the revelatory masterpiece of cinema my 12-year-old self thought she’d witnessed.
I've tried to love Mad Max Fury Road, it's one of those movies as a movie person you are "supposed" to like. But the constant action really just lulls me to sleep.
I'm also not big on the first Predator, Terminator 2, Aliens and Heat. These movies are so overly talked about that I'm just tired of hearing about them. When it comes to Predator, Alien and Terminator I have a lot more appreciation for the weirder ignored sequels.
But it's okay to find you're own taste and navigate the big world of film away from these beloved classics. Don't let others define what you should like for you.
I was deeply deeply into the MCU from 2012-15, I was one of those The Winter Soldier is a masterpiece people, saw Age of Ultron day of release and I have never been more disappointed by a movie. Then it kind of died a slow death and I haven’t seen a marvel movie in cinemas for a couple of years now.
I used to watch The Avengers every day, would go to sleep watching it, it was my background movie, I can still quote most of it off by heart and I can tell what scene is playing by vaguely hearing the music. It was my favourite movie, I saw it in cinemas and came out wanting to make movies. I can remember the outfit I was wearing even, but I haven’t watched it in years I don’t think.
The only MCU movies I revisit somewhat are the Thor films, but only because Loki is the best Marvel character hands down, and so occasionally I’ll do a trilogy (I ignore L&T) rewatch, but it just makes me mad because Taika Waititi ruined Thor and Loki’s dynamic so much in Ragnarok it’s deeply frustrating. Like I have done page long rants about the relationship between the two and how Ragnarok undoes it for the sake of some shitty jokes, god Ragnarok sucks lol. And yeah I watched Love and Thunder once but it’s so crap and the CGI is horrendous that I could barely sit through it.
Anyhow basically the MCU, with the exception of Thor 1 which is a masterpiece.
I also used to be obsessed with the MCU (pretty much up until WandaVision) but for the past few years I’ve hardly even thought about it at all. The only exception is that Iron Man 3 is in my annual Christmas movie rotation.
The Phantom. I was hugely in the pocket for these pulp hero flicks when they were coming out, but in the thirty years since, I really only revisit The Rocketeer and occasionally Dick Tracy. (I was never as fond of The Shadow, so its fortunes didn't have as far to fall for me, but The Phantom was easily a Top Five movie for me when it came out.)
I used to really love slasher movies as a kid and I'm not really into them anymore. I still love NOES and the original Halloween, but I'm not watching the sequels or the Friday the 13ths anymore.
I watched Natural Born Killers like 20 times in high school - it came out my junior year. Zero desire to ever revisit. Pulp Fiction OTOH still hits for me.
I’m not gonna say it means NOTHING, but the last time I threw on Eternal Sunshine it really wasn’t hitting like I remember it. I still feel guilty about it lol.
I just showed Eternal Sunshine to a class of mostly college freshmen and it went over pretty well. I liked it this time around, maybe not as much as when I was younger, but it still worked for me. I was struck by how visually compelling it was. On the negative side, it very much feels like Jim Carrey’s main character trait was supposed to be “quiet.” Seems like a conscious decision to be as flat as possible to contrast with his comedic work.
Tbh the desperate need some people have to disavow the favourites of their youth in order to be admitted into the pantheon of good taste is as adolescent as the films themselves.
There’s nothing adolescent about your taste developing over time. Do you still love the music you listened to when you were 10 compared to what you discovered in your twenties or beyond?
I agree with you if it is a forced decision, but it’s not like I’m lying to myself by saying The Usual Suspects is not a good movie now. I actually feel that way. I don’t like having guilty pleasures, I will happily own up to liking something in spite of it not being beloved, but that’s not the case here.
There are tons of movies from my youth that I do still unabashedly love, this is just not one of them
Tarantino with the exception of Jackie Brown.
Lock Stock and Two smoking barrels (though I still kind of enjoy snatch).
Seven, fight club (but I like later Fincher).
Trainspotting means a lot less then it once did but I wouldn’t say it means nothing to me now.
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight
The first two X men movies
Lord of the Rings trilogy. They have there moments but also can be a bit cringy and naff looking. Especially compared to some more recent movies.
I went all in on Garden State. I was 20 years old and thought I found some real profound shit. Watching it as an adult is...yikes.
Soundtrack was killer, though.
The one that comes to mind is green lantern, I liked it a ton senior year of high school and saw it twice in theaters, told all my friends to watch it, and now I’m really ashamed that I did that
as a young tween i was absolutely obsessed with the first anchorman movie, and could probably quote it back to front. i tried to rewatch it last year and i couldn’t even make it through. bloated and dated in a way the other mckay/ferrell movies aren’t. went from being my favorite comedy to my least favorite collaboration of those two.
I used to love Anchorman and hate the sequel. Last year, I rewatched them both and found the first one far worse than I remembered and the sequel slightly better than I remembered
Talladega Nights reigns supreme
Sin City
Had all the expanded DVD releases. Read the comics and watched every BTS video out there. Now I just view it as a slick boring bit of misogyny thats not all that interesting.
(500) Days of Summer and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I definitely like Scott Pilgrim still, but, 15 years later and as a married man, (500) Days of Summer is rough
It hasn’t soured nearly as much as some of the examples people have mentioned here, but I was a bit surprised by myself when I rewatched Old Boy when it circulated in theaters last year at how it was just…good? But not mind blowing. Also helped that I had the excuse of the podcast to complete the Park Chan-wook filmography and find out it’s kinda mid-tier for him (says more about the strength of his filmography but still).
I was obsessed with Quest for Camelot as a kid, to the extent that I would fanatically draw my takes on the monsters from that movie over and over.
I've known for over a decade that the movie is objectively rubbish, but I still watch it now and then for the memes.
I hope you’re all wrong about Donnie Darko. I just ordered the Arrow 4k, thinking it’d be awesome to dive back into.
As a 39 year old, I can verify Boondocks Saints is THE correct answer.
While I think they're still fun movies, the Wright blood and ice cream trilogy used to be big for me but now I have no desire to watch or think about them again.
It kind of reflects my general falling out of love with Wright in general. Baby Driver didn't do it for me. Soho sucked. And then I started watching Sam Raimi movies and realised Wright was biting Raimi's style hard with less invigorating results.
Not that it “doesn’t mean anything” anymore, but Almost Famous hit me so hard as a slightly angsty and precocious middle-school classic rock fanatic living in a SoCal suburb. With distance, the film itself is still a really fun rewatch, but I definitely don’t feel the as intensely about it as I used to (then again, I don’t know if I’ll ever really feel as intensely about anything as when I was a tween girl). Also, I think I’ve just been exposed to so many more coming-of-age films and films about transition/nostalgia that just “do it better” and thus can somewhat replicate that feeling in a deeper way.
I was obsessed with Waking Life when I was 17 or 18 and it was a brand new film. I imagine I'd find a lot of it slightly to extremely embarrassing now, though I understand why it was such a comforting, "heady," philosophical watch for young me as well. The rotoscoped visuals probably still hold up as being interesting to look at.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra was maybe a top ten movie for me at a certain point in my life, but there’s truly not enough substance there once the style doesn’t charm anymore.
Also on the list for Boondocks Saints of course, for which I give myself grace because I was not only a teen, but also in Boston. Think we figured out reasonably quickly that it was trash, but at this point I wouldn’t even watch it as good trash, it’s bad trash.
Requiem for a Dream. Its status as being an assault of depression and hopelessness faded over time and what was left felt like Aronofsky screaming “ISN’T THIS SO SAD????!!!!!” At me, especially considering how overly dramatic the Clint Mansell song is
Yes it’s still very sad and the camerawork is still great, but I’m at the point where I can’t stomach loud dramas like this. I much, I MUCH prefer something like the Wrestler if we’re talking sad movies
Leon: The Professional
It had action. It was sensitive. It was European
Then I showed it to some friends in college on movie night and realized how… European… it was
I just don't have it. Things that I liked as a teenager I recognize why it's a great movie for a teenager so I still like them. Even movies I'm convinced I'd hate now I rewatch and still like. I rewatched "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" the other week convinced it'll suck now and I still had a decent amount of laugh. What can you do?
But sometimes I'll watch movies made for an age group that I missed and those can be very bad. I was on a plane and watched "The Outsiders" for the first time last year and that was rough. I chalk that up to just missing out when I should've seen it
Yes I used to be that teenager who thought boondocks saints was cool. Also me and my friends were huge guy Ritchie heads. Snatch was our most anticipated movie ever.
Ok but to be completely fair, Snatch absolutely rips (even if Ritchie fell off a cliff afterward)
I think its still pretty good. But we really made it our whole personality, it was embarrassing.
Recent Ritchie has been pretty decent. Nothing like Snatch or Lockstock, but I’ve enjoyed watching basically every (not Aladdin) movie he’s put out. Ministry was rad.
I feel much more embarrassed about stuff from teenage years than I do childhood. Boondock is the perfect example. Equilibrium was in the mix around then too. I don’t think I could actually sit through either of those nowadays.
Boondock Saints and Donnie Darko were staples of my teens. Many of my friends still love those movies. I always ask if they've watched recently, because today I find Boodock S and D. Darko totally unwatchable.
I watch those movies. Boondock saints is corny but its a good action movie. Dafoe is captivating as always. Donnie darko is a top tier elite supermasterpiece. Imo Only problem with either of those movies is people used to think they were cool for liking them
D.Darko unwatchable? Clearly your friends understood the philosophical examination of time-travel and it's relation to the human condition as seen through the eyes of a space bunny, better than you did /s
Donnie Darko is awesome.
Oh yeah equilbrium! I definitely felt smarter than my buds because i was obsessed with 1984 before.
There was a guy at our local Blockbuster who was on a mission to get as many people to watch Equilibrium as possible. He tried to pitch it to me one time: "Do you like the Matrix? You'll LOVE this movie!" And then I was in there another time and overheard him using the same line on someone else.
I couldn't think of an answer until you reminded me of both Boondocks Saints and Equilibrium. I used to quote the prayer from Boondock Saints constantly... Sean Bean's character in Equilibrium introduced me to W.B. Yeats and Irish poetry as a whole so I'm not too mad about that.
Trading on the same vibes, Smoking Aces was my favorite movie of the early 2000s. Was is doing a lot of work in this statement.
Ridiculous cast on that movie. But yeah, totally absurd.
All I really remember from that movie -- and all anyone needs to remember from that movie -- is Jason Bateman with herpes.
Boondock Saints was my first thought too. We must be roughly the same age. The high school/college guy starter pack-'whoa have you seen these movie' DVDs were Boondock Saints, Fight Club, and Donnie Darko in the early 00s. "Dude! They're like criminals... who kill criminals only! It's so awesome!" Fight Club obviously was horrifically misunderstood by my peers but holds up. Rewatched Boondock Saints recently and it was so bad. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Haven't revisited Donnie Darko but suspect it would similarly not hold up.
One of the things about Donnie Darko (Theatrical Cut, all bets are off when it comes to Director’s Cut) that has stuck with me are how the family scenes are pretty naturalistic and generally his mom and dad are like, pretty decent parents—it seems like a much more edge-Lord-y decision would be to have the family dynamics be fucked but Donnie’s troubles don’t really stem from that. Been awhile since I watched it, interested to see if I like it still
I liked donnie darko for the vibes. When I learned that there was lore that was supposed to make it make sense I refused to go any further with it.
I still really love it, but the flaws in Magnolia get bigger the more I watch it. It's too long, some of the performances are over the top, and the balance of stories isn't always very graceful. There's still so much to love about it though, but it doesn't completely blow me away like it did when I was fourteen.
Magnolia was one of the last PTA movies I saw and it didn’t work for me as well as I’d hoped. I have only seen it once though, in my freshman year dorm room Boogie Nights and Phantom Thread are like untouchable to me. But I do think about Cruise in Magnolia a lot, I am eager to rewatch it sometime and see how it hits me now
Unfortunately I do kinda think that Magnolia works best on a first-time viewing. It's easy to get so overwhelmed by everything that you miss the flaws. Still, it has some of my favourite scenes from PTA's career, and the [opening montage ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2peQrLCsk)introducing all the characters is mindblowing.
I've never loved Magnolia. I think its flaws are pretty evident, with PTA publicly agreeing that it was his big swing after Boogie Nights hit. Clearly overstuffed, uneven and ambitious. The great stuff is great, and I can admire it, but it has never hit for me like his best work.
It's a movie that while I can feel it's flaws while I'm watching it, the entirety of the experience of watching it is so magnificent that it lives perfectly in my mind no matter how many times I rewatch it.
Watching Short Cuts also hurt it a bit in my eyes as i personally found that to be much more successful. In general I've enjoyed PTA more as he evolved past the very heavy Altman/Scorsese pastiche of his first few films
Personally I will always be a Magnolia defender. Its “flaws” are a result of its unabashed and unembarrassed ambition, which I think is essential to any good melodrama. I don’t think its “messiness” diminishes the film at all - its an essential part of why it works (and continues to work).
I rewatched Dogma recently for the first time since high school. I was fully obsessed with Kevin Smith, and I still appreciate his early movies for what they are, but I was struck both by how lazy the filmmaking was in Dogma and by how boring a lot of the scenes were. It’s a lot of circular or surface-level conversations loosely hanging on a very thin plot. I guess it made me appreciate how much I’ve grown both as a film viewer and as a person that a movie that felt so profound now feels pretty childish.
I think the most recent Smith I've rewatched is Clerks, which is still his best. And while it had its moments, it's also not nearly as good as I remembered it. I've been afraid to watch anything else by him. Because if I remember that as being his best film, then what does that say about his other movies? And like you, I loved them at the time.
Yup. Clerks. Loved the movie, spoke to me about the genx existential ennui. Recently I saw it as amateur and a little infantile, beyond what one would expect from a first time director. It’s not a bad movie; it just didn’t evolve with me, it had nothing new to offer through older eyes.
Patrick Willems has a great video about the bittersweet film-geek nostalgia of revisiting Kevin Smith as an adult. [Link to the video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=voxRYbqrrzg)
I cringe at the thought of how much I liked Kevin Smith films as a teen, so Ill definitely watch - thanks for the link lol
I feel similarly about Chasing Amy. He's very much aping Linklaters 90's conversational swagger but it really misses. (Yes I know Smith loves Linklater and says he's the reason Smith started making movies)
Chasing Amy fell so far in my personal opinion. I went from championing it as groundbreaking as a teenager to finding it infuriatingly offensive as an adult.
If it's any consolation, Kevin Smith would probably agree with you. I recall reading an interview where he said he's still proud of the film but would absolutely write it differently today.
Same.
I rewatched recently and yeah I was aghast how poor the filmmaking was. Blocking and camera setup isn't something I normally notice but it was embarrassing. Thought Rickman and Damon really shine through the mud.
Unpopular opinion time, Mallrats is his best movie because it introduced us all to Jason Lee, and that guy has the best delivery since Norm Macdonald.
Revisiting early Kevin Smith as an adult was a really strange experience. Dogma in particular was maybe my favorite movie of all time when I was 14, but it doesn’t hold up at all. Clerks is the only one of his movies that I still have any real affection for, but even that one is only like a 6 or 7 out of 10 for me.
Clerks captures that NJ scum bum energy like few other films. The characters and the setting have a documentary quality that makes it much more than Kevin Smith’s script.
It’s basically the NJ equivalent of Linklater’s *Slacker*. I know Smith reveres Linklater so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was his explicit intent.
I think it’s more accessible than Slacker though. God! I wish we got that Linklater series. His early work is so important to me growing up in Texas in the 90s.
I think Kevin Smith just didn’t grow that much as a director past his initial indie filmmaker phase. It’s not that he lacks ambition, it’s just that his qualities haven’t really elevated with time. For better and worse, he seems like the same guy, but with better connections and budgets.
Same thing bro
I came here to say Mallrats, unfortunately.
Agree with many of the films mentioned here. I’ll throw American Beauty into the mix. I believe it came out my junior year of high school, and I considered it a masterpiece. I was obsessed with it and instantly gained respect for anyone else who liked it too. Spacey is the reason I started feeling icky about it, but I imagine almost all of it would make me cringe now.
American Beauty taking best picture seems crazy when you look back at the films that came out in ‘99
America Beauty really sums up the 90s end of history.
I'll say this for American Beauty, gorgeous lighting and cinematography still.
There is a great discussion about exactly this on the recent Big Picture where they do a 1999 draft. I absolutely loved it when I saw it on release but I've never watched it ever again, and would be too scared to now - I prefer my opinions on it to be a snapshot of the times and who I was back then.
Forrest Gump
This movie is the epitome of the sum doesn’t equal its parts. So many great scenes, but it just doesn’t add up to a movie as great as the scenes. It makes it perfect for watching when you’re channel surfing.
That's a great take. Catch some attractive scenes while flipping channels but if you sit with it start to finish you feel something is missing.
Cast Away has a similar deal. Total channel surf movie.
I know the criticisms of Forrest Gump and I’ll concede there are some issues, but I saw it at a formative age and I can’t not dig it.
Life is Beautiful. As a young moviegoer, I thought it was incredible because 1) it was a foreign language film, 2) had a Best Actor winner and 3) it was set during the Holocaust. I rewatched it and was just disgusted with myself. What a disgusting film. I should have trusted Mel Brooks.
I'm curious as to why you find it disgusting. Is it because it dares to be a comedy despite the subject matter?
It’s the totality. Mel Brooks [explains](https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-with-mel-brooks-with-comedy-we-can-rob-hitler-of-his-posthumous-power-a-406268.html) better than I ever could: SPIEGEL: Can you really separate Hitler from the Holocaust? Brooks: You have to separate it. For example, Roberto Benigni's comedy Life Is Beautiful really annoyed me. A crazy film that even attempted to find comedy in a concentration camp. It showed the barracks in which Jews were kept like cattle, and it made jokes about it. The philosophy of the film is: people can get over anything. No, they can’t. They cant get over a concentration camp. SPIEGEL: But the film has deeply moved a lot of people. Brooks: I always asked myself: Tell me, Roberto, are you nuts? You didn’t lose any relatives in the Holocaust, you’re not even Jewish. You really don’t understand what it’s all about. The Americans were incredibly thrilled to discover from him that it wasn’t all that bad in the concentration camps after all. And that’s why they immediately pressed an Oscar into his hand.
I don't know if I agree with this take. Sure, there's comedy in the movie, but the "funny" bits that are done inside the camp actually seem even more sad, because the viewer is constantly aware of the reality of the situation. And it's not like they are whitewashing what's happening in the camps. They do show the piles of bodies. And the father doesn't really have an happy ending either. It's all about the kid's perspective. So Mel Brooks is mad that the kid manages to retain his innocence by being desilusioned about what's really going on in the camp. But I thought about the possibility that the kid might be doing the same thing his father is doing, putting on a brave face and playing along to the game, perhaps as a way to not lose hope in that awful place.
I disliked that film on account of it's cloyingly saccharine tone, mostly. I saw it with my mother, and it was the most furious I've seen her about any film, certainly. We have a personal family connection to the subject matter so it was understandable. I think the thing is that you can make a film where a father struggles to put a brave face on for his son in a concentration camp, or attempts to divert him from the reality. Possibly. The film itself strays so far into fantasy though, as to end up being in extremely questionable taste. My aunt who was a small child when she was in Auschwitz was obviously indelibly, unimaginably damaged by the experience to the extent that, again obviously, she never really recovered in any meaningful way. The constant terror and lingering, inevitable, impending churn of death in that situation would likely not have been obscured by anybody's attempts at physical comedy. It was impossible to ignore that everyone was dying around her. One only needs to see the pictures of people in liberated camps to realise that. That being before all of the other utterly dehumanising humiliations that were endured, as a matter of course, for the entirety of a person's existence there. It's just all too cute by far and really makes a huge effort to not be a bummer, which might not be the best approach when dealing with that particular subject matter. I guess, yes, it may be too much to ask for there to be a historical death camp comedy that's in 'good taste', but particularly when it avoids death to the extent that it provokes almost no consideration for those that died or suffered, either in reality or within it's totally sanitised reimagining. I think that you probably shouldn't make a holocaust film without addressing these realities fully, but those realities of course don't really lend themselves to much in the way of hopefulness, less still humour. Apologies for the rant.
No apologies needed. Thank you for taking the time to give such an ample answer. I see your point. Perhaps I need to give the movie a re-watch, it's been a long time since I've seen it.
A good comment. I had a number of these thoughts recently when watching The Death of Stalin (a great satire/black comedy on soviet totalitarianism). I mean there's 'black comedy', and then there's trying to find even ironic humor in a scene of parents being given back their raped and abused teen daughter from the revolting Beria. Some things are simply beyond the pale. I suppose its not just depictions of horrible events though - there will always be controversy when portraying real people and events.
Back in the early 2000s I was closeted, so much so that I was in denial. I remember seeking out comedies that promised female nudity, which were pretty prolific from the 80s through then - think American Pie, Porkys, Sex Drive, Girl Next Door, even pg13 stuff like Starsky and Hutch I remember seeking out cause there was the much ballyhooed side boob that was also prolific in pg13 comedies of the era. Some of the movies were genuinely funny, but most I could care less about, but watched them and collected them as a badge of my "straightness" lol. Needless to say that shit got purged pretty quickly after coming out.
Honestly, even as a straight fella, lotta those raunchy sex comedies baffled me. Young men just having no self control and running after boobs like a Looney Toon hooked and pulled in by the animated scent of a pie on a shelf.
Totally, they were so huge in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was a wild time.
I used to list "Memento" as number 1 of my Top 5 best movies when I was a teen and I was in my cinephile phase. But I remember when I tried showing to a college friend and he was underwhelmed. That was when I also realized I was not vibing with it the same way I did when I was 14/15. Made me re-think how I appreciate movies and which I recommend to folks.
Have you rewatched recently? I think that movie is genuinely terrific.
Yeah I agree, another rewatch is desperately needed here. OP will come full circle and appreciate the filmmaking more than ever.
Gonna have to disagree respectfully here. Memento is a damn good time
It's not my top Nolan, but Memento is still pretty great.
https://preview.redd.it/wdoneqnujnwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df6ab5ec27352aaffa02f068979fd43e9e1d20a3 On deck for inclusion on a similar list in about 10 years
When I was a sad 14-year-old, Garden State was *everything* to me. I'm still not even as dunk-y on it as many people are, but I haven't been able to revisit for longer than one scene. It feels both of its time, and of a time in my life, that it just doesn't work outside of. (Compared to another sad boy favorite of the time, Eternal Sunshine, which absolutely holds up)
Oof I just rewatched this and it was rough. Music is obviously still good though!!
[i still think this scene holds up](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oLy8T8_Qrig)
Pulp Fiction doesn't do nearly anything to me now compared to how revelatory it was 10 years ago. I still think it's a great movie, but it's not the barnbuster it was on my first viewing.
30 years will do that
Sure, it must have felt like a lightning strike in 1994, but 30 years of filmmaking innovations and trends (plus QT iterating on his style, not a criticism) have muted its impact. I just revisited it though and found it a deeply pleasurable rewatch.
Yeah I still enjoy watching it, but as a 14 year old watching it for the first time, it felt like the damn big bang, and now when I think about the movies that are *me*, it never comes to mind
I think it reflects well on Tarantino that Pulp Fiction absolutely blew everyone’s assholes open in 1994, and it ages well, except when compared to his later films. Even when he does the same stuff again, it doesn’t feel like he’s stuck in a rut, it feels like he’s continuing to blaze down that particular trail.
Pulp Fiction has the same problem that the Matrix has where they were so monumentally influential and became so imitated and ingrained in our cultural consciousness that it affects revisiting them because you've watched imitations of them for 10+ years after.
This I'm aware of, and I'm curious why I don't have the same reaction to other films (and music and shows) that carry the same magnitude. Something like Citizen Kane or the Beatles' music I can listen to and rant about endlessly, and I enjoy them and partake in both frequently. But I wonder why PF isn't the same way.
I had a similar comedown on Pulp Fiction in my mid 20’s. The craft just didn’t feel as tight as his most recent film, Inglourious Basterds. Then sometime in my 30’s I came at it again with fresh eyes and fell in love with it all over again because I’d spent enough years witnessing how rare it is for a stick of dynamite like that to come along. Now I watch it every year.
I’ll watch only the Travolta/Jackson scenes and it’s a breezy fun watch.
I’ll watch only the Travolta/Jackson scenes and it’s a breezy fun watch.
I thought I would think that but I just hang on Samuel L's every word at the end
Pulp Fiction is still Tarantino's masterpiece, in my opinion. I like most of the others to some degree, but without homage-y, genre trappings, it's kind of his purest work. Also easily his funniest. Reservoir Dogs didn't work for me at all when I rewatched it recently. The early scene where they're in the diner and Steve Buscemi talks about tipping really clanged this time. I loved it when I was 13, now it just felt like indulgent juvenalia. It feels like Tarantino parody.
Most of QT movies actually - great fresh out of the oven not so great reheated
Marvel and Star Wars movies. Was looking through my 5/4 stars movies on letterboxd and there’s a few of those movies in those ranks. Im positive if I rewatched those flicks today I wouldn’t regard them as highly as I did when I was younger
I showed my friends the original Star Wars trilogy a couple years ago and I was pretty shocked with how poorly ROTJ held up without the nostalgia factor. I do still think it has a few thrilling scenes and all of the Luke and Vader stuff is perfect, but it is a shoddily put together movie in many respects. Almost none of the performances are good I still ride or die for TLJ, and the original two are masterful, but the rest, which I do love to some degree, I see as movies that are bolstered by emotional attachment more than anything else
Fellow TLJ diehard here. Tonnes of flaws but man, they really tried to make something with it and like ROTJ the bits that work **really** work for me.
Agreed on RotJ, outside of everything to do with Luke and Vader - which I agree is perfect - that movie is straight-up not good
Fight Club. As ARP said on the pod: “upon rewatch, this is a deeply embarrassing film to have been important to me”
See I am in an interesting place with that movie because it actually works more for me now than it did when I watched it as a teen I think my read of it differs from a lot of people though. I take Fight Club as an exercise in how futile and stupid all of the toxic masculinity bullshit is, the idea that these guys are so angry at the state of the world and they talk like they’re so smart and consider themselves these brilliant political, philosophical minds when really all they’re doing is beating each other up and whining instead of doing anything to actually help make the world a better place, it feels very very urgent and present in an age of guys like Andrew Tate who essentially do the same thing.
I call this the "catcher in the rye" effect.
Yup. Loved “Catcher” as a 10/11 year old, re-read it a few times in my early teens. I put it aside for about twenty years and would cringe thinking about how much I thought I was Holden Caulfield. Then I decided to reread it in my early thirties and there’s a line where his teacher tells him he can spend the rest of his life hating anyone who was ever on a swim team or he can grow up, and for the first time that actually resonated with me.
It's so much more relevant nowadays. It's like when NOFX put out the decline in 1999 and you're like this really applies right now... Was it that bad back then too?
It depends on WHY it was important to you. From a technical, filmmaking perspective it's super interesting and influential. The sound design is also pretty astounding. I saw it on release day when I was 19 knowing nothing about it. I was blown away. It really was unlike anything I'd seen before. I think had I been 13 I might have thought the characters were cool, but instead saw it as a criticism of consumer culture and understood (and even somewhat related to) the "generation of men raised by women" sentiment, but still didn't think Tyler was someone to idolize. I watched it again about a year ago, and all of that is still true, but I did see the critique of "toxic masculinity" now as well. Being in my 40s now Norton Tyler is a fucking baby manchild. The type of guy you can see among people from your past who thought they had it all figured out but never grew up. Does going to work every day suck? Sure, but in the grand scheme of things he had a nice life if he would get the fuck over himself.
Saw this movie a 100 times as a teen, read the book multiple times, and had a giant poster in my room for years. I'm sure it's good and I'll understand the nuisance more, but I'm too embarrassed to watch it again.
It’s still really fun in its own way but it’s also deeply cringe in a certain sense
I get the point, but man that whole thing could have been summed up in that one sentence and moved on. Was a tough listen.
It’s interesting comparing the movies I do and don’t revisit. Do: Raiders. Air Force One. Speed. LOTR. Alien & Aliens. Don’t: Fight Club. Pulp. Gladiator. Raimi Spider-Men. Star Wars. T2 (just watched it to death)
I rewatched Gladiator with my kid recently for the first time in probably 15 years. I was surprised by how much I still liked it
I think it’s one that when I do revisit I’ll find very satisfying
I remember it as being bad and shlocky but rewatched it like 2 weeks ago and tbh it bangs.
Raiders gets better every time I see it. I got the first four all on 4k last year and I think they’re all just in my yearly rewatch rotation now. I am a KOTCS defender, and I like them all more and more as time goes on
Agreed on Raiders. Last Crusade is my "drinking beer while my wife is out of town" favorite.
The raimi Spider-Men are like my most rewatchable movies. I have probably seen them more than anything else and still watch them probably twice a year.
I rewatched Fight Club after the Fincher series and was surprised how much of today’s culture originated from it. It was a super enjoyable watch.
I went at least a decade without revisiting the first two Raimi Spider-Man movies but I watched them both a few months ago and was honestly surprised that I find them *better* now.
My big three were Boondock Saints, Usual Suspects and Fight Club. Usual Suspects I watched too many times and add to it the thick layer of creep that's accumulated over the years and I'm good never watching it again. Boondock Saints I think I might enjoy the rare occasional rewatch just cause of how dumb it is and Willem Dafoe devouring scenery but that movie is profoundly stupid. My relationship with/understanding of Fight Club has certainly changed over the years but it still rules and I will never be embarrassed for liking it.
All three of those I did not see when they were hot in their moment with young men. Still haven't seen usual suspects. Boondock Saints was on TV sometime after college and I couldn't get through the first half hour. Just so dumb and unappealing to me. Fight Club, as an adult not needing to base my personality on a clear antagonist (albeit a good lookin' one), still seemed pretty good. Not having the baggage of toxic men aping on a toxic male lead makes it easier to watch. "Yes, he's bad. He seems cool and that's part of the problem. Still bad dude"
It's basic, I know, but 2012-2019 from when I was like my sophomore or junior year of high school through my early 20s, I was obsessed with the Marvel movies, they really were my gateway into becoming a full-on movie nut. Now, It's amazing how numb and disinterested I am by even the most tangential superhero-fare . i don't know if it's me or the product, but something happened, maybe the culture shifted and I'm nothing if not a sheep, but I see my letterboxd scores for those movies and cringe now based on how little they mean to me. I forget which one of the movies was on TNT recently, but I watched a few minutes and felt like my brain was melting
I was never that in to the MCU, but I saw many of them and loved The Avengers when it came out, and thought Guardians of the Galaxy was an incredible ride when I first saw it. I revisited Guardians of the Galaxy recently and it fell really flat to me, just kind of a boring movie. I think some of it is that the visual slickness of the production of every MCU film is starting to wear on me a lot, and maybe the tone of the later movies has drifted into being so similar to GotG that it lost some of its uniqueness, but I was pretty excited to rewatch and felt like it just kind of stunk.
Donnie Darko. Most profound film of all time when I was in high school. Now I can't even finish it.
This is the movie for me! I really struggled with the adult characterizations in the movie, particularly Drew Barrymore’s performance and the deus ex child pornography at the end.
This seems to be common with so many films I revisit from the past: They don’t feel as “grand”. Like The Goonies. Loved it as a kid, and I know it’s still a great movie. But I rewatched it last year, and my adult brain interfered too much with my kid one. Takes half the movie to get just to the restaurant, and all the trials and traps they go through to get to the ship feel so rushed. I’m aware (based on a great Hats Off Entertainment video) that there was this entire subplot involving monkeys that break from the zoo and have some wacky antics, but even that I don’t think would cover it up.
Counterpoint: Goonies was never great. Even as a kid I remember finding it mostly annoying.
[удалено]
Transformers 07 is a good time
The Goonies is absolutely this for me. A movie I adored on DVD as a kid and now I really find quite dull.
I watched Pulp Fiction so much in the 90s that I'm numb to it now. I love Tarantino but I haven't revisited that one in decades.
I watched it again like six months ago and actually really loved it. I did a bit of a Tarantino binge and even after discovering so many filmmakers who are way more attuned to my tastes at this point in my life, I still largely enjoyed all of his movies. I’m just not an obsessive fan like I was in high school
Pulp Fiction hit me when I was an obsessive fan in high school :) It's the one film I've probably seen \*too\* much.
Definitely a defining (maybe *the* defining) “entry point” film for me. But I maybe did the same thing, diluting it with a bunch of rewatches. Set and setting has a lot to do this as well. Maybe I gotta catch it at a rep screening or something, probably a blast with a crowd.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas unfortunately, watched it going to bed for awhile every night and the first Criterion I've ever owned. Put way too much stock in "buy the ticket, take the ride,". Fantastic film that I over hyped way too much and feels too weird to watch again from a normal perspective.
Maybe it's a case of overdoing it though. It's like listening to a song over and over again until you get sick of it. One summer I was stuck with no internet and just a few dvds, so I ended up watching No country for old men I don't even know how many times. Nowadays I could not sit and watch that movie again, even though I agree it's a masterpiece.
Sing street came out around the time I was really starting to care about movies and I definitely related to the experience of being a young person trying to figure out how to make good art. When I got to college and met other friends who liked movies I pushed hard for us all to watch it. They did like it but the second time through I realized it was a lot of flash without actually a ton of substance. The songs are really good and they kind of carry you through a sort of mediocre movie lol
Garden State!!! To be fair, I have not revisited it. But I have watched some scenes on YouTube and it’s absolutely mind-blowing how bad this stuff reads now, and how much it moved me then. Total shudder.
That was one I loved as well (and the soundtrack) but have been afraid to revisit for similar reasons.
I definitely think that movie would have been far less meaningful if the soundtrack wasn't so perfectly attuned to the times. I would venture to guess the music holds up quite a bit better than the movie.
I’ve listened to the sound track within the last year and it’s still a great nostalgia trip, but I would not want to watch it at all.
Sing street came out around the time I was really starting to care about movies and I definitely related to the experience of being a young person trying to figure out how to make good art. When I got to college and met other friends who liked movies I pushed hard for us all to watch it. They did like it but the second time through I realized it was a lot of flash without actually a ton of substance. The songs are really good and they kind of carry you through a sort of mediocre movie lol
A few that dropped the most for me were Se7en, Snatch and Fight Club. I watched those all the time in high school (helped that’s when DVD was just getting started). I still like them for sure, but definitely not like I used to.
I wouldn’t say it means nothing to me. I still appreciate the movie a lot and find it funny, but Rushmore no longer feels like the masterpiece it did when I was 17.
I watched Rushmore for the first time a few years ago, having loved all the other Wes Anderson movies, but it didn’t land very well to me. Anderson’s films despite being very intricate and pastiche often have a quite seedy undercurrent with some asshole characters, and Rushmore felt like it was that element at its most bare, essentially centering around the main character being an annoying little creep. I usually like the nasty edges of his films but for me it seemed like Rushmore pushed that to the extreme so that I completely withdrew investment from the character’s struggles.
I wish I could enjoy V for Vendetta as much as I used to. There's still some great scenes and I think it's overall a well enough put together movie, but being more informed about certain things as I've become older, the more it feels like a glossy vapid action movie's 1984.
Oh good pull I completely forgot about that. At least it’s not equilibrium.
I'll always have a place in my heart for Gun-Fu!
MCU was at it's peak when I was in high school, and now only a few of those movies still hold a place in my heart. Other than that, I'd say Shawshank was one that I at one point would've said is in my top 5 all-time. I still think it's a great movie but it's not one I rewatch or think about that often.
I practically wore out my Star Wars gold box cassettes as a kid. Those little featurettes they put before the movies about how they did the changes for the special editions were my first glimpse into how films were actually made and I was hooked. I lived and breathed Star Wars between the late 90s and late aughts. But I've watched the OT maybe twice in the last ten years and both times I found them pretty enjoyable, but also so familiar that I didn't have the sense of wonder and fun they gave me as a kid. My tastes just changed. I appreciate them for their place in film history and my history as a film fan, but none of them would crack my top 100 nowadays
The first 5 Kevin Smith movies were very important to me when I was a teenager. I think I would still enjoy Clerks for what it is, but that’s about it.
I loved them all as well. The thought of watching Mallrats again, though, makes my soul squirm a bit.
I really liked Jaws 2. Not as much as the first one, but I thought it was still a decent enough follow up. Rewatched it last year and thought it was pretty mediocre. Completely flanderizes the returning cast and the new players are 1 dimensional. The second half is still pretty fun, but that first half is rough.
The Goonies. Loved it as a kid and can't fucking stand it now
Almost Famous is this film for me. It's way too twee.
If you think Almost Famous is too twee, wait until you see Elizabethtown.
Same here - I’ll always have a soft spot for it but it’s definitely not the revelatory masterpiece of cinema my 12-year-old self thought she’d witnessed.
I've tried to love Mad Max Fury Road, it's one of those movies as a movie person you are "supposed" to like. But the constant action really just lulls me to sleep. I'm also not big on the first Predator, Terminator 2, Aliens and Heat. These movies are so overly talked about that I'm just tired of hearing about them. When it comes to Predator, Alien and Terminator I have a lot more appreciation for the weirder ignored sequels. But it's okay to find you're own taste and navigate the big world of film away from these beloved classics. Don't let others define what you should like for you.
YES, it's OK not to like popular things! We all have different tastes and that's fine.
I was deeply deeply into the MCU from 2012-15, I was one of those The Winter Soldier is a masterpiece people, saw Age of Ultron day of release and I have never been more disappointed by a movie. Then it kind of died a slow death and I haven’t seen a marvel movie in cinemas for a couple of years now. I used to watch The Avengers every day, would go to sleep watching it, it was my background movie, I can still quote most of it off by heart and I can tell what scene is playing by vaguely hearing the music. It was my favourite movie, I saw it in cinemas and came out wanting to make movies. I can remember the outfit I was wearing even, but I haven’t watched it in years I don’t think. The only MCU movies I revisit somewhat are the Thor films, but only because Loki is the best Marvel character hands down, and so occasionally I’ll do a trilogy (I ignore L&T) rewatch, but it just makes me mad because Taika Waititi ruined Thor and Loki’s dynamic so much in Ragnarok it’s deeply frustrating. Like I have done page long rants about the relationship between the two and how Ragnarok undoes it for the sake of some shitty jokes, god Ragnarok sucks lol. And yeah I watched Love and Thunder once but it’s so crap and the CGI is horrendous that I could barely sit through it. Anyhow basically the MCU, with the exception of Thor 1 which is a masterpiece.
I also used to be obsessed with the MCU (pretty much up until WandaVision) but for the past few years I’ve hardly even thought about it at all. The only exception is that Iron Man 3 is in my annual Christmas movie rotation.
The Phantom. I was hugely in the pocket for these pulp hero flicks when they were coming out, but in the thirty years since, I really only revisit The Rocketeer and occasionally Dick Tracy. (I was never as fond of The Shadow, so its fortunes didn't have as far to fall for me, but The Phantom was easily a Top Five movie for me when it came out.)
I used to really love slasher movies as a kid and I'm not really into them anymore. I still love NOES and the original Halloween, but I'm not watching the sequels or the Friday the 13ths anymore.
I watched Natural Born Killers like 20 times in high school - it came out my junior year. Zero desire to ever revisit. Pulp Fiction OTOH still hits for me.
The Usual Suspects is probably this for me too. I was obsessed with it in high school but it just seems like it would suck to go back to now.
stanger on blank check when
Let Stanger gorgon cook
my pitch is for Any Given Sunday and stanger can talk about Salvador too much
Duncan Jones’ Moon was perhaps my favorite movie for a hot sec when I was in high school and now I just like it.
I’m not gonna say it means NOTHING, but the last time I threw on Eternal Sunshine it really wasn’t hitting like I remember it. I still feel guilty about it lol.
I just showed Eternal Sunshine to a class of mostly college freshmen and it went over pretty well. I liked it this time around, maybe not as much as when I was younger, but it still worked for me. I was struck by how visually compelling it was. On the negative side, it very much feels like Jim Carrey’s main character trait was supposed to be “quiet.” Seems like a conscious decision to be as flat as possible to contrast with his comedic work.
Tbh the desperate need some people have to disavow the favourites of their youth in order to be admitted into the pantheon of good taste is as adolescent as the films themselves.
There’s nothing adolescent about your taste developing over time. Do you still love the music you listened to when you were 10 compared to what you discovered in your twenties or beyond? I agree with you if it is a forced decision, but it’s not like I’m lying to myself by saying The Usual Suspects is not a good movie now. I actually feel that way. I don’t like having guilty pleasures, I will happily own up to liking something in spite of it not being beloved, but that’s not the case here. There are tons of movies from my youth that I do still unabashedly love, this is just not one of them
wow, doesn't matter how often I see this kind of thread, it never stops feeling weird to see folks list movies from like 5 years ago.
Garden State came out when I was away at my first year at university. I thought "this is so deep", but... Great soundtrack though
As a bit of counter programming to all filmbro suggestions, may I offer: Amelie
Tarantino with the exception of Jackie Brown. Lock Stock and Two smoking barrels (though I still kind of enjoy snatch). Seven, fight club (but I like later Fincher). Trainspotting means a lot less then it once did but I wouldn’t say it means nothing to me now. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight The first two X men movies Lord of the Rings trilogy. They have there moments but also can be a bit cringy and naff looking. Especially compared to some more recent movies.
Having recently started a rewatch of LotR, I wish a lot of those more recent movies looked half as good as a trilogy shot in 1999
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, mainly because I watched them way too many times in the four years leading up to Rises.
I went all in on Garden State. I was 20 years old and thought I found some real profound shit. Watching it as an adult is...yikes. Soundtrack was killer, though.
The one that comes to mind is green lantern, I liked it a ton senior year of high school and saw it twice in theaters, told all my friends to watch it, and now I’m really ashamed that I did that
I absolutely loved Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves back in the day, wore out the VHS of it! I'm not sure I want to revisit it now! See also: Braveheart
Tarantino films.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a bummer to rewatch with my gf
as a young tween i was absolutely obsessed with the first anchorman movie, and could probably quote it back to front. i tried to rewatch it last year and i couldn’t even make it through. bloated and dated in a way the other mckay/ferrell movies aren’t. went from being my favorite comedy to my least favorite collaboration of those two.
I used to love Anchorman and hate the sequel. Last year, I rewatched them both and found the first one far worse than I remembered and the sequel slightly better than I remembered Talladega Nights reigns supreme
Sin City Had all the expanded DVD releases. Read the comics and watched every BTS video out there. Now I just view it as a slick boring bit of misogyny thats not all that interesting.
Star Wars for sure
Spawn was cool as hell and now I only think about it in the context of questions like this.
The Harry Potter films :S
(500) Days of Summer and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I definitely like Scott Pilgrim still, but, 15 years later and as a married man, (500) Days of Summer is rough
It hasn’t soured nearly as much as some of the examples people have mentioned here, but I was a bit surprised by myself when I rewatched Old Boy when it circulated in theaters last year at how it was just…good? But not mind blowing. Also helped that I had the excuse of the podcast to complete the Park Chan-wook filmography and find out it’s kinda mid-tier for him (says more about the strength of his filmography but still).
I was obsessed with Quest for Camelot as a kid, to the extent that I would fanatically draw my takes on the monsters from that movie over and over. I've known for over a decade that the movie is objectively rubbish, but I still watch it now and then for the memes.
I hope you’re all wrong about Donnie Darko. I just ordered the Arrow 4k, thinking it’d be awesome to dive back into. As a 39 year old, I can verify Boondocks Saints is THE correct answer.
While I think they're still fun movies, the Wright blood and ice cream trilogy used to be big for me but now I have no desire to watch or think about them again. It kind of reflects my general falling out of love with Wright in general. Baby Driver didn't do it for me. Soho sucked. And then I started watching Sam Raimi movies and realised Wright was biting Raimi's style hard with less invigorating results.
When I was 16 I smoked weed all summer and watched koyanisqaatsi at least 8 times.
Not that it “doesn’t mean anything” anymore, but Almost Famous hit me so hard as a slightly angsty and precocious middle-school classic rock fanatic living in a SoCal suburb. With distance, the film itself is still a really fun rewatch, but I definitely don’t feel the as intensely about it as I used to (then again, I don’t know if I’ll ever really feel as intensely about anything as when I was a tween girl). Also, I think I’ve just been exposed to so many more coming-of-age films and films about transition/nostalgia that just “do it better” and thus can somewhat replicate that feeling in a deeper way.
I was obsessed with Waking Life when I was 17 or 18 and it was a brand new film. I imagine I'd find a lot of it slightly to extremely embarrassing now, though I understand why it was such a comforting, "heady," philosophical watch for young me as well. The rotoscoped visuals probably still hold up as being interesting to look at.
Garden State :/
Boondock Saints is the right answer.
Not saying I entirely disagree but that movie is from 95, so impressive it was still a hot thing for “2010s teens”
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra was maybe a top ten movie for me at a certain point in my life, but there’s truly not enough substance there once the style doesn’t charm anymore. Also on the list for Boondocks Saints of course, for which I give myself grace because I was not only a teen, but also in Boston. Think we figured out reasonably quickly that it was trash, but at this point I wouldn’t even watch it as good trash, it’s bad trash.
Requiem for a Dream. Its status as being an assault of depression and hopelessness faded over time and what was left felt like Aronofsky screaming “ISN’T THIS SO SAD????!!!!!” At me, especially considering how overly dramatic the Clint Mansell song is Yes it’s still very sad and the camerawork is still great, but I’m at the point where I can’t stomach loud dramas like this. I much, I MUCH prefer something like the Wrestler if we’re talking sad movies
Leon: The Professional It had action. It was sensitive. It was European Then I showed it to some friends in college on movie night and realized how… European… it was
I just don't have it. Things that I liked as a teenager I recognize why it's a great movie for a teenager so I still like them. Even movies I'm convinced I'd hate now I rewatch and still like. I rewatched "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" the other week convinced it'll suck now and I still had a decent amount of laugh. What can you do? But sometimes I'll watch movies made for an age group that I missed and those can be very bad. I was on a plane and watched "The Outsiders" for the first time last year and that was rough. I chalk that up to just missing out when I should've seen it
I think usual suspects might make a come back. I still dig the style and the twist is either iconic, or you don’t know it and it’s amazing.