Movies that hold up vs. those that don't

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With regards to Coolhand's list (I meant to hit reply/quote, my bad) on Hoffman, not a huge part, but he also maximized his screen time in The Big Lebowski.

Moneyball would be the one role (Art Howe) I don't think he added much. Doesn't really detract from the movie, but perhaps miscast. Sorkin wrote it, as he had Charlie Wilson's War, so maybe that was what led him to the part.
 
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coolhandgopher said:
Almost Famous, Doubt, Boogie Nights, The Talented Mr. Ripley (off the top of my head) pop into my head as other movies where he owns the screen whenever he has a scene. As you said, a tragic loss.
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Don't forget Pirate Radio. :)
 

Some of my older favorites that still hold up (at least for me)

-Karate Kid
-Twister
-The Abyss
-Trading Places
-Coming to America
-all the Vacations except European
-my favorite war movie, the original Midway
-Jurassic Park

Did not hold up for me:

-The Last Starfighter. I remembered loving this movie as a kid, but holy hell it was bad on rewatching.
-Pearl Harbor. I like the depiction of the actual attack, but when the DVD said I had to switch to disk 2 for the end of it...I noped out of that one.
 

for the Abyss, it has to be the long version. the edited version is crap.

BTW, I found a documentary on YouTube on the making of the Abyss. the stuff the cast and crew went through to make that movie was nuts.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
for the Abyss, it has to be the long version. the edited version is crap.

BTW, I found a documentary on YouTube on the making of the Abyss. the stuff the cast and crew went through to make that movie was nuts.
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Oh, definitely. The extended version makes so much more sense at the end. And yeah, there are several actors that refuse to comment on what it was like making that movie.
 


I caught The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly through YouTube over this past week (it took me the entire week to watch, as it clocks in at three hours) and I realized it was a movie I'd never watched in its entirety, just had seen snippets here and there and of course Enrico Morricone's score is indelible. Anyhow, man, was it a good time! The three leads were great, the storyline had so many curves that I don't expect from Westerns and again Morricone's score is sublime.

Not long ago, I did rewatch another classic epic Western, Once Upon a Time in the West, which also stands the test of time. If you haven't seen it and you like the genre (or even if you don't--my wife got sucked into my viewing of it), it's great, particularly Henry Fonda as the evil cowboy.
 


coolhandgopher said:
I caught The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly through YouTube over this past week (it took me the entire week to watch, as it clocks in at three hours) and I realized it was a movie I'd never watched in its entirety, just had seen snippets here and there and of course Enrico Morricone's score is indelible. Anyhow, man, was it a good time! The three leads were great, the storyline had so many curves that I don't expect from Westerns and again Morricone's score is sublime.

Not long ago, I did rewatch another classic epic Western, Once Upon a Time in the West, which also stands the test of time. If you haven't seen it and you like the genre (or even if you don't--my wife got sucked into my viewing of it), it's great, particularly Henry Fonda as the evil cowboy.
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With Leone, you have to give the movie time to tell its story at its own pace.

Another great Leone movie is "Once Upon a Time in America" with Robert DeNiro and James Woods as childhood friends who get involved in organized crime. The story covers decades with multiple time jumps forward and backward, so you really don't grasp the entire story until the final minutes of the movie. Warning - if you watch it, be sure it's the long version. there was an edited version that is a crime against humanity.

One thing that all three movies have in common is great character performances.
 

I took in 2 of Spielberg's best movies over the holiday weekend and both hold up, Saving Private Ryan at home and Jaws on the glorious big screen.

Ryan, I have seen it multiple times and know every beat but I still love it every time. I think it's Hanks' best performance and it's flat out crazy that the movie did not get the Best Picture Oscar. Shakespeare in Love? C'mon man.


As for Jaws, I remember sort of seeing it as a kid when our family first got a VCR (circa '82) but I am guessing my eyes were closed through most of it. I am also sure the god awful sequels colored my perception of the original. Seeing it "fresh" over 45 years after the release, amazing how well the production was along with great performances by the main and supporting actors.

Copycats be damned.

 



Ope3 said:
I took in 2 of Spielberg's best movies over the holiday weekend and both hold up, Saving Private Ryan at home and Jaws on the glorious big screen.

Ryan, I have seen it multiple times and know every beat but I still love it every time. I think it's Hanks' best performance and it's flat out crazy that the movie did not get the Best Picture Oscar. Shakespeare in Love? C'mon man.


As for Jaws, I remember sort of seeing it as a kid when our family first got a VCR (circa '82) but I am guessing my eyes were closed through most of it. I am also sure the god awful sequels colored my perception of the original. Seeing it "fresh" over 45 years after the release, amazing how well the production was along with great performances by the main and supporting actors.

Copycats be damned.

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We just watched Jaws and Jaws 2 the last two nights. Jaws was still great. Jaws 2 was pretty blah.
 


KD6-3.7 said:
any fans of tremors?

rewatched it recently and got homoerotic vibes from kevin bacon and fred ward characters. so it must "hold up" right?
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Lol Tremors is awesome. A little less so as every sequel comes out.
 

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night, really good. I remember seeing it in a theater when it was released back in 2004 but ironically given the plot, I hardly recalled any plot details.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are so good in this as well as the entire supporting cast. Looking at the Oscar nomination list, Carrey should have gotten a nod that year.
 



Ope3 said:
I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night, really good. I remember seeing it in a theater when it was released back in 2004 but ironically given the plot, I hardly recalled any plot details.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are so good in this as well as the entire supporting cast. Looking at the Oscar nomination list, Carrey should have gotten a nod that year.
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He got screwed for The Truman Show too. Utterly ridiculous.
 

Ope3 said:
I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night, really good. I remember seeing it in a theater when it was released back in 2004 but ironically given the plot, I hardly recalled any plot details.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are so good in this as well as the entire supporting cast. Looking at the Oscar nomination list, Carrey should have gotten a nod that year.
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One of my top five favorite movies.
 

Watched Falling Down with Michael Douglas again. Still a very good film from the 90's.
 

Going a bit off the track here, but:

I watch a lot of older movies on "Turner Classic Movies" so lots of stuff from the 30's, 40's and 50th.

Watched a potboiler the other night called "The Crowded Sky." The story follows two airplane pilots who, through some mechanical issues, do not realize that they are flying directly at each other.
Not a great movie - spent way too much time on romantic sub-plots involving the co-pilot and a stewardess.

But here's the thing - the two pilots in the movie were played by Dana Andrews and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

a number of years later, they both did the movie "Airport '75" - another movie involving a mid-air plane collision. and once again they played the two pilots.

So the same actors did two different movies where they played pilots involved in a mid-air collision. what are the odds?

p.s. "Airport '75" is the movie where the pilots of a big passenger plane are killed or hurt in a mid-air collision, and a stewardess, played by Karen Black, has to try and fly the plane. the later spoof "Airplane" was based in part on "Airport '75" and also based on a movie called "Zero Hour" about a combat pilot with PTSD who has to try and land a passenger plane. the Star of "Zero Hour" was - you guessed it - Dana Andrews.
 

here are a couple tough ones for you all, and not to make this political, but falling down and big trouble in little china have both been criticized as movies that don't hold up politically.

the anti-hero of falling down is now considered right wing by most cultural critics, and is held up as a hero by many on the right. while big trouble in little china is considered culturally insensitive and filled with asian stereotypes. i love both movies (though i'm still not certain what "holds up" means).

in my opinion, the anti-hero of falling down is more of a nazbol than a natsoc. and, outside of three white actors, big trouble in little china has a cast of entirely asian actors. which was groundbreaking for the time. (if you want to look at the movies through an entirely political lens.)
 




KD6 - that's the issue with looking at old media through today's political prism.

by "modern" standards, almost every movie made in the 30's, 40's and 50's would be considered "culturally insensitive" today for treatment of minorities, women, smoking, you name it.

westerns - insensitive to native americans.
war movies - insensitive to the Japanese
virtually any movie with black characters depicted them with stereotypes.

Now, to be sure, that does not make them bad movies. You just have to be able to look at them in the proper historical context.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
KD6 - that's the issue with looking at old media through today's political prism.

by "modern" standards, almost every movie made in the 30's, 40's and 50's would be considered "culturally insensitive" today for treatment of minorities, women, smoking, you name it.

westerns - insensitive to native americans.
war movies - insensitive to the Japanese
virtually any movie with black characters depicted them with stereotypes.

Now, to be sure, that does not make them bad movies. You just have to be able to look at them in the proper historical context.
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To continue the conversation, one of the reasons I enjoy older movies is getting a sense of the context of the times through mainstream pop culture. An obvious example is virtually any of John Hughes' movies which are rife with homophobic slang and crass stereotypes, but I still enjoy, although it serves as a clear reminder of what was acceptable language/actions during the '80s. Speaking of. . .
 

I watched Total Recall for the very first time over the weekend and I think there's a really solid movie possible in the Philip Dick short story that's not wrapped up in over the top violence, wooden acting, and ridiculous use of profanities. I'm usually not put off by violence and cussing, but it was distracting in this movie especially teamed up with the bad acting.

I also viewed In the Valley of Elah this weekend, again first time viewing, and that was a hell of a movie. I woke up the next morning thinking about it--if you haven't seen it, I won't give it away, but Tommy Lee Jones is superb as the father of a missing AWOL soldier who comes to discover truths about his son that he hadn't recognized. Highly recommended, but not light fare.
 

Under Don't Hold Up:

out of boredom, I started watching "Species II" the other night on HD Net Movies. the original "Species" is no masterpiece, but it's a fun, dumb, sci-fi action movie.

The sequel is an utter piece of dreck. The only reason I watched it for 45 minutes was because it had a LOT of gratuitous nudity. Like I said, I was bored. I found a quote online from star Michael Madsen, who described the movie as "a piece of sh*t."
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Under Don't Hold Up:

out of boredom, I started watching "Species II" the other night on HD Net Movies. the original "Species" is no masterpiece, but it's a fun, dumb, sci-fi action movie.

The sequel is an utter piece of dreck. The only reason I watched it for 45 minutes was because it had a LOT of gratuitous nudity. Like I said, I was bored. I found a quote online from star Michael Madsen, who described the movie as "a piece of sh*t."
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When I think movies that "held up" or did not.....I usually think the qualifier is that they were considered good or even decent when they came out. I'm not sure Species II held up when it was released.
 

stocker08 said:
When I think movies that "held up" or did not.....I usually think the qualifier is that they were considered good or even decent when they came out. I'm not sure Species II held up when it was released.
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So maybe it does hold up? Sucked then & sucks now.
 


coolhandgopher said:
I watched Total Recall for the very first time over the weekend and I think there's a really solid movie possible in the Philip Dick short story that's not wrapped up in over the top violence, wooden acting, and ridiculous use of profanities. I'm usually not put off by violence and cussing, but it was distracting in this movie especially teamed up with the bad acting.

I also viewed In the Valley of Elah this weekend, again first time viewing, and that was a hell of a movie. I woke up the next morning thinking about it--if you haven't seen it, I won't give it away, but Tommy Lee Jones is superb as the father of a missing AWOL soldier who comes to discover truths about his son that he hadn't recognized. Highly recommended, but not light fare.
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I'm with you on both of these.

Total Recall had a lot of potential but it felt like they needed it to be more of a action movie and the story would have worked better more as Philip K. Dick intended. I have no issue with cursing and violence in movies but it detracted in this one for me too.

Agree on Valley of Elah. My wife is at home on maternity leave right now and she cried because I got her Starbucks. So I had to sneak watch this one a few weeks ago.
 

Has anyone watched Too Much Johnson? It’s an early welles
Piece
 

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