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Films That Used To Be Crap But Aren't Any More

Started by DukeDeMondo, June 29, 2019, 01:46:21 AM

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DukeDeMondo

There's been a lot of chat on here recently about stuff that hasn't aged very well. A lot of folk scrunching their faces up and shrugging and saying "well, I liked it at the time, like, but, I dunno, it really hasn't aged very well."

All sorts of things this is said about. Not so good any more.

"I thought it was great, but then years, and now no."

Well what about the other kind of things that there are? The things that time has been very kind to? Maybe you didn't like them when they first came out, these things, thought they were a load of old punk, but here all of a sudden it's the present and fuck me they're fantastic all of a sudden. As if by magic (time).

What about those things? I don't necessarily mean films once considered failures that have since enjoyed widespread critical revaluation and are now considered thumbs up by everyone.

Just for you, really, I mean. What did you think was crap and then years later realised was good?

I'll go first.

A Field In England

Year: 2013


The year is 2013 and everybody is up to high doh because this is the year that A Field In England comes out, and everyone knows it. Everyone's favourite director is Ben Wheatley, everyone's favourite films are films that he has directed, and this new film that he has directed called A Field In England has by far the best poster of the lot. It's going to be incredible. It's about, I dunno. Nobody knows. The solar system is sneaking up behind a Quaker or something like this. God alone knows what it's about, but it's so good it's going to take over the whole of the television and the cinema and the internet the night it comes out. The film every other film has been gesturing towards. A Field In England. This is some film, believe you me.

I, like many, many others, was still texting away about how this was the best film of the year BY FAR long after I'd stopped properly paying attention to it, long after I'd realised that we had all made a terrible, terrible mistake. I didn't know how long we were going to have to keep it up for. This whole performance. Pointing at other over breakfast (in slow motion or not) about how oh, Christ, absolutely it is, oh, without question it's the best film of the decade. If you could even really reduce it to that.

For how long was this to go on? Forever, likely as not.

But the truth was I thought it was a bit crap. I had forgotten almost everything that went on in it within 24 hours. The one bit I kind of liked was the same bit everyone kind of liked so I didn't even have to bother remembering that. Soon enough I just let happen what was always going to happen. I let it all just fuck off. We all did.

Now. Week or so ago I was reading the cover article on the so-called Folk Horror Revival in this month's Fortean Times (that the editorial staff consider the "Folk Horror Revival" a hot enough topic in 2019 to warrant that kind of coverage, complete with a big Wicker Man and what not, is of course a desperately Fortean development in itself) and it reminded me of this A Field In England and I wondered if it was really as crap and underwhelming as I remembered it being, so I went about getting hold of it and then last night I put it on for a minute, fully expecting to be bored tit witless before ever the thing was an eighth of the way through.

Tell you what. Time's been kind to it. A Field In England. It has aged well. It used to be crap but it isn't any more.

Divorced from all the hype and the hooray and the Munch Bunch it's allowed to just be what it is, which is, it turns out, a really fucking fun sort of a cheap kind of quickie in the spirit of a Play For Today or what have you, one that just happens to be full of a load of the sort of stuff that just really fucking appeals to me. Ropes pulling something, maybe! Scrying mirrors! Big furry fucking suns of things, next! Twangs, and for why?! Boaking up stones! A cock that gets looked at! 

I really, really fucking enjoyed it. If enjoyment is about here, say, then I was up there, where the really, really fucking enjoyment hangs about.

It used to look all distractingly digital and ugly – the wrong sort of ugly – but it doesn't look like that any more. It used to feel like a bunch of students fucking about trying to convince you they were forty students or forty fewer students smarter, and it doesn't feel like that either. It was pretentious as fuck one time, but now it's a different "...as fuck." One of the good ones.

Back then it seemed to want to be seen as some sort of spin on Witchfinder General by way of 2001, and it's not that, so it seemed like a failure. In reality, it's far closer in spirit to something like last year's November. Witchfinder General – by way of 2001 or not – would make for a terrible double bill with A Field In England. Probably already has done several times. But November and A Field In England bounce off each other beautifully. 

It's just having fun. I never noticed that before, but it is, and when I saw that it was having fun then I started having fun too. I don't know if it's because I was watching in Standard Def away back then, but there was no fun anywhere onsceeen in 2013. And none off. No fun for them and fuck all fun for me. Now, though: fun.

Fun, so.

I enjoyed it so much that today I ordered the Blu Ray because I want to own it with a cover and all so as I can watch it again and again. If you'd told me at any time in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2018 that in 2019 I'd be ordering A Field In England on Blu Ray and that I'd be really excited about it arriving in the post so that I could watch it another time I'd have said you've got fields between your ears, son, and there's nothing grows there but my aunt arse.

But here we are.

So that's A Field In England. It Used To Be Crap But It Isn't Any More.

What else?

mothman

This is going to devolve into subjective vs. objective again isn't it?

So I don't see how this is any different from just saying "Films I didn't like but now do" or "films nobody liked back then but now some people secretly (or not so secretly) do" - this last aka "cult films."

Dr Rock


Replies From View

Before about 18 years ago I was never into the Marx Brothers films, but then in around 2001 I started liking them.

oy vey

Plan 9 From Outer Space became a lot more watchable after Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Changed from utter shite to comedic. We just needed the biopic back story to realise it.

St_Eddie


Funcrusher

Quote from: Replies From View on June 29, 2019, 03:26:19 PM
Before about 18 years ago I was never into the Marx Brothers films, but then in around 2001 I started liking them.

CAB posters that used to be crap but aren't any more.

PlanktonSideburns

Might have to go check out weatleys High Rise to see if it's stopped being dogshit

Seems unlikely - couldn't have gone to the cinema more ready for that film, but it was just a load of still images moving at a rate that implied a moving image, for some time. No kind of film at all. What happened?

Especially after a field in England, which was thrilling. I think he got too obsessed with his 70s aesthetics, forgot how make film

Glebe

I thought Captain America: The First Avenger was pretty shonky on first viewing, but catching chunks of it on subsequent telly reruns, it's actually quite endearing.

Gregory Torso

Sorry, going to have to have to take a run-up to this post. Wanted to do the OP proud, Duke always puts the effort in, but last night was too much drinking with the bad girls in the tiki shit.

It's really hard for me to give films a second chance. Such investment, the preparation, demand. Concentrate on this thing for two or three hours. No talking. Not like a song or a painting that only takes a minute, girl. A film. Could be Jodorowksy, could be Money Train. All those films I have hated that are probably due a rewatch in different circumstances with a different set of eyes (I lost my sunglasses last night, favourite ones).

Couple I can think of that shit me to tears, doubtless are good but here's the chafe, hated them at time of viewing:

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie. You alright there, Cassavettes, director and fugazi song? Yeah, sound. So, anyway, I hadn't seen my friend for years, a film buff he is, bit of a buff, and we met up for drinks and nostalgic flim flam, but what did I have to do immediately after exiting the train station? Watch this seven hour long film about a man in the 70s with a combover searching through RED ROOMS to find a Ladbrokes. I think he was in a car park for a few hours just banging stuff around. I needed a piss, I was not allowed to move or speak until the film ended. Time and a place, my pal. Cassavettes, you probably think I'm some kind of heaving doughy idiot with gills and a whistling cave inside where his brain and culture should be (how dare you say that in front of my herzog box set!), yeah well maybe. I'll give you a proper go one day (I won't though, I won't).

Money Train. I don't know if Money Train deserves a second chance. An angry veiny police captain does say "I'll fuck you dead" to Woody Harrelson so it probably does. I was just really, really angry watching this film, and upset, for off-screen reasons. You shouldn't watch a film upset, even if it is Money Train. Volume on full, stunting, trying to pretend she's coming back, a shameful experience.

Angry with myself for going to Blockbuster like some kind of pizza topping friday night cunt. Angry at Woody Harrelson's CGI hair whiffling in a subway tunnel. Angry at Jennifer Lopez pretending to be street drunk. Just noise and horrible fake snapchat dialogue. Unforgivable foley, Wesley Snipes back slapping Woody sounds like Rocky punching a side of cow; the lights go off pop pop pop, subway commuters hearts drip out on to the floor. Money Train is coming. I'm in tears trying to pray my girlfriend faithful, distract it with this drippy hollywoody harrelshit.

The Weather Man. This one I will go back to one day. Started watching it going "oh NO NO, this is SHIT", really hungover, really early morning, living above a chinese wank salon, errant businessmen in towels and dressing gowns stumbling out on trembling cum-shot legs, howling outside my window. I wanted a cold bowl of cornflakes, not this Nicholas Cage film, and Michael Caine doing his lines like he was spluttering out curly hairs from his cuppa soup, tawdry shit. Turned it off when Nick Cage started calling his daughter "cameltoe". But then I started watching it again later, and there's a bit, I remember this, Michael Caine is slurring his words out like he doesn't want to wake up a giant in the next room, and suddenly he's all full of emotion, "in this SHIT LIFE, son, in this SHIT LIFE" and then Nicholas Cage is firing an arrow into an archery board that's frozen over and ice is breaking and ice is moving rippling on the frozen hudson river in shards and its beautiful. I was wrong, the wanked off errant salary men in the street below were wrong, my neighbours who screamed and threw chunks of their balcony down into the street, wrong. I need to go back and watch this again. In peace, with no trouble in my heart.

magval

Quote from: Dr Rock on June 29, 2019, 11:31:42 AM
This Is The End.

This Is The End is spoiled by two things.

1. Jay Baruchel apologises to his obnoxious Hollywood wanker friend in heaven at the end for feeling anxious and awkward about not wanting to go party with a bunch of cunts when he thought he was going to be hanging out with his close personal friend of many years. He was my road into that film, and I felt really let down by that fucking hug-and-learn, now-here's-the-Backstreet-Boys ending. There was no way that film was going to have a satisfying ending anyway, but that wee suggestion of 'fuck your oddness, be like them' fucked me off no end, and the 'have a classic pop song' thing was so by the numbers after Wilson Phillips in Bridesmaids.

2. It Wasn't The End. They had that one perfect opportunity, maybe even unheard of in cinema history, to definitively wrap up an era, a type, even, and make a final film in a sequence, like the last episode of a TV series, and even within the film made lots of points about their careers and influence and tied it off nicely. And within a year or two Seth was in Bad Neighbours, still a man-child, still glorifying partying and bad improv, and the whole POINT of This Is The End was undone.

However, there's a lot of really, really funny stuff in that film. I do not dislike it.

I didn't like The 40 Year Old Virgin when I first saw it, but later enjoyed some of it on TV. Probably too long.

mjwilson

Nearly everyone was pretty down on Fire Walk With Me when it came out, including critics, but it's now generally seen as one of Lynch's best.

Personally I was pretty unenamoured of it initially, I was definitely one of the people going in hoping for, essentially, more of the TV series. I didn't have great cinema experiences with it either, the first time I saw it was in an otherwise empty cinema, the second time there were people laughing at bits that were not supposed to be funny.

Fortunately my local cinema is doing a Lynch season this summer so hopefully it's third time lucky.

Mister Six

Quote from: mjwilson on June 30, 2019, 01:45:36 PM
Nearly everyone was pretty down on Fire Walk With Me when it came out, including critics, but it's now generally seen as one of Lynch's best.

Oh yeah, definitely. Maybe THE best. Certainly the most emotionally satisfying, I think. I saw it before I'd seen the show, so I came in at an odd angle with none of the preconceptions but a thousand times the questions. Watching it in sequence before The Return aired, I thought it worked remarkably well, and its ballsiness (I know everyone points to the TV getting smashed at the start, but how was nobody clued in by this at the time?) is admirable. A great, great film.

checkoutgirl

I enjoyed A Field in England the first time I saw it 5 years ago. I'm not sure what to think. Was I wrong then but right now?

Very confused.

lipsink

Every once in a while I sit down and rewatch 'The Dark Knight Rises' hoping that time has been kind to it and it will turn out to be great. It's still a mess though and just doesn't work. It just seems like it should be great.

Piggyoioi

Iron Man 2. I might of been a little drunk however.

Piggyoioi

Ill also add Avatar in there, a film I initially scoffed at with the boring cliche argument of 'the story's been done before' - who gives a fuck? - been a decade since and I haven't seen a visually more original blockbuster and no one shoots an action scene like James Cameron these days.

Head Gardener


mothman

Well, hardly all 1995. In down order: 1995, 1997, 2000, 1998, 1992?

mr. logic

Quote from: lipsink on July 02, 2019, 05:26:11 PM
Every once in a while I sit down and rewatch 'The Dark Knight Rises' hoping that time has been kind to it and it will turn out to be great. It's still a mess though and just doesn't work. It just seems like it should be great.

Edit. Got the wrong Batman film.

zomgmouse

I remember studying Citizen Kane in Year 12 and analysing it to death and it got to the point of "yeah ok we GET it this is a GREAT FILM OK FINE" and it lost all appeal to me, but then I rewatched in on the big screen quite a few years later and was really just struck that, yes, indeed, this is a fucking great film.


Shaky

Quote from: Piggyoioi on July 03, 2019, 12:42:43 PM
Iron Man 2. I might of been a little drunk however.

Definitely. I understand the dislike of IM2 but I've always enjoyed it, far more so than Part 3.

lipsink

Quote from: Shaky on July 04, 2019, 01:26:06 PM
Definitely. I understand the dislike of IM2 but I've always enjoyed it, far more so than Part 3.

I remember at the time I thought they'd crammed far too many characters and plotlines into it. I rewatched it again recently and it doesn't seem so crammed what with how many characters they stuff into recent MCU films. Mickey Rourke's character is a bit underserved though. He has such a big build up and ends up pissing about building robots in the background for most of the film.

Same with Civil War which I rewatched and just about gets away with balancing all the characters. The trip to New York to suddenly introduce Spidey midway into the film is still a bit iffy.


greenman

Quote from: Piggyoioi on July 03, 2019, 12:48:08 PM
Ill also add Avatar in there, a film I initially scoffed at with the boring cliche argument of 'the story's been done before' - who gives a fuck? - been a decade since and I haven't seen a visually more original blockbuster and no one shoots an action scene like James Cameron these days.

The main weakness for me was always that it wasn't nearly as interesting visually as it could have been, really only the Roger Deanish floating islands stuff sticks in the memory much, besides that its a mix of recycled Alien tech and some god awful new age art. I would take films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok over that by quite some way when it comes to interesting design work in big action blockbusters.

The films main strength for me is Cameron can still do action very well.


Piggyoioi

Quote from: greenman on July 04, 2019, 07:19:49 PM
The main weakness for me was always that it wasn't nearly as interesting visually as it could have been, really only the Roger Deanish floating islands stuff sticks in the memory much, besides that its a mix of recycled Alien tech and some god awful new age art. I would take films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok over that by quite some way when it comes to interesting design work in big action blockbusters.

The films main strength for me is Cameron can still do action very well.



I spaff all over my knickers every time I see this spacecraft.

But seriously, I love alot of the industrial design on the movie, particularly the mech robot thing, everything feels like it works. And all the creature design in that movie was spot on, the sheer range of fauna, Pandora has an ecosystem that i believed in.

I dont mind the Marvel stuff, overall I find it abit ugly all around, but they manage to keep it consistent and balance the rope quite nicely between clear cartoony shapes and good materials. Alot of the stuff in Thor Ragnarok almost seemed to be ugly on purpose, worked for the movie. What was Jeff Goldbloom's outfit for that movie, wasn't it basically just a dressing gown and a little eye shadow? - hilariously simple.

greenman

That ships in the film for about 30 seconds though.

The creature design was basically remove fur and add an extra set of legs to terrestrial animals plus then add a lot of cheesey bioluminescence to everything in sight.

The Marvel films aren't really attempting anything even vaguely realistic but I don't hold that to be a standard of their design being visually interesting or not.