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How do!

So this is yet another thread derived from Life Adventures of an Idiot.

This time, I’d like to focus on classic films you know you’ve seen, but have never really watched.

I’m kicking off with Jaws. Now I know for a fact I’ve seen this film before. But I can’t say I’ve ever watched it. Indeed most of my memories are tropey.

And so I’m now making a concerted effort to properly watch it as an actual (alleged) adult, who has by now properly watched a great many movies.

So this is kind of a self challenging confessional type affair. I dunno. You make of this thread what you will

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

The first time I saw it, I alternated between feeling bored and laughing at how unlikeable the wife and child were and how hammy Nicholson was. I just couldn’t take it seriously. The second time I saw it, I mostly skimmed, half paying attention so that I could catch the important parts people always reference and remember them.

I still haven’t been able to give the Shining the kind of watch film aficionados claim it deserves.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for Jaws, I remember being less impressed with it as a child that I have been with it as an adult. Things like subtle set ups and payoffs, acting, and deliberate pacing went over my head….and I hadn’t yet seen enough really bad films to appreciate a good one.


In a similar vein, when Independence Day came out, I thought it was a dumb fun movie. I really didn’t give it much respect. Rewatching it last year after two decades of truly stupid movies, I now appreciate the solid story structure, engaged direction, and cast-set chemistry (fewer green screens), the competence.

The Godfather, when I was a teenager a mate enthusiastically showed it to me and another friend, basically billing it as the greatest movie of all time. Suitably primed we proceeded to rip it to shreds, taking the mick out of everything. To this day I can't really remember the what happens in it other then to know the famous scenes that get referenced everywhere. Also I've tried to watch it since and just can't see past all of the problems which made it such an easy target to ruin.

Talking to a friend a couple of weeks back, I came to the realisation that I don't think I've seen Top Gun all the way through - I suspect I've seen most of it in chunks, but I can't recall ever sitting down and watching it in one go.

Citizen Kane

I had it in my possession for a number of weeks, as I had borrowed it from my relatives. However, I never really got around to really seeing it. I would play it, and then get distracted and skim it instead.

It's a Wonderful Life
Some say everything you need to know about the American psyche is built into this film. I would not know as I have never really watched it from start to finish all at once. It gets played every year on TV, back when that was the only way to really see it; and I never really saw the entire thing.

Stalker and Solaris by Tarkovsky for me. My attention just seems to wander off. Stalker's weirdly slow camera cuts don't help.

Perfectly happy with subtitled films, it's just those I can't get to grips with.

Blair Witch Project. Mostly chatted with friends through it when we were all bored. At the very end someone stumbled in and passed out in front of the TV so I didn't even see the part people seem to actually like.

Rain Man. I always turn off the film after they leave the Cincinnati area (the scene where they pull off the interstate and pick up Dustin Hoffman was filmed a few miles away from where I grew up and was living at the time). I just lose all interest in the film after that.

Easy mode:
Star Trek the Motion Picture. I've definitely seen it, but its editing and composition is so... uh... unique? That it feels like a disjointed series of scenes that don't congeal into a whole.


Harder to explain:
Wrath of Khan. I know I've seen it, and it doesn't have the problems of Star Trek I, but I could not tell you what order things happen in. Khan's recovery (though obviously this comes early), ear-worms, Kirk's ex, the whole explanation of the Genesis device, and then the battle. In my head there's basically the research station, the ear worm scene, and then the battle and that's it.

Up until a few weeks ago? Kelly's Heroes.
I'd seen bits of it over the years. I knew the general plot (US soldiers in WWII try & steal a bunch of gold from the Nazis). Features tanks. But I'd never actually watched it as whole.

And for all these years I'd somehow missed that it stars Clint Eastwood & Donald Sutherland....
Sutherland? Eh, ok. While I recognize him, he doesn't just spring to mind.
But Eastwood? I've been watching his movies since I was a single digit age child! How did I not realize that he's not only in this movie, but that he's the star of it??

Spartacus (the old Kirk Douglas one)

It's usually screened on normal telly over the chrimbly time in the UK, but being full of big chrimbo dinner or turkey curry, and latterly fall down juice I don't think I've seen it all in one sitting,

Top Gun.

I've always hated it but when I was a kid it was on TV multiple times a year. Now that the sequel is out at theatres and had very high reviews I gave the original a chance, watching it entirely for the first time. But nope, it was even worse than I remembered. Wrong on every possible level.

Now I've actually watched it so it doesn't really count for this thread though. Some movies that I saw multiple times without really watching them are the old Superman movies with Chistopher Reeve. Although the last time was something like 20 years ago. All fun for a few scenes but too boring to watch properly. I didn't like the modern Superman movies as well.

Alien.

I saw this after I saw Aliens, and it was at a party, and we were so bored in the first half hour that after the chestburster scene we just turned it off.

Years later I would return to it and really liked what I saw. It wasn't boring at all. It was suspenseful, and creepy and really well put together.

 Blackie wrote:
Top Gun.

I've always hated it but when I was a kid it was on TV multiple times a year. Now that the sequel is out at theatres and had very high reviews I gave the original a chance, watching it entirely for the first time. But nope, it was even worse than I remembered. Wrong on every possible level.

Ha! I was going to go into Top Gun, but as I wrote it, it turned into a diatribe.
The sequel just baffles me... that it's somehow doing well... I'm entirely chalking it up to desperation for anything in theatres.

Tallonian4th wrote:
The Godfather, when I was a teenager a mate enthusiastically showed it to me and another friend, basically billing it as the greatest movie of all time. Suitably primed we proceeded to rip it to shreds, taking the mick out of everything. To this day I can't really remember the what happens in it other then to know the famous scenes that get referenced everywhere. Also I've tried to watch it since and just can't see past all of the problems which made it such an easy target to ruin.

Same for me...

It really can be a challenge to go back and watch an old movie, as they had a place in time and while some hold up, many simply do not. This can be the effects used at the time, what was going on in the world, etc.

I recall watching Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In as a kid and it was absolutely hilarious all the time. When it was on old reruns when I was an adult, everything fell flat as it was too topical for the time, over done in the current day and age, etc. I think movies can be the same way.

 MDSW wrote:

Tallonian4th wrote:
The Godfather, when I was a teenager a mate enthusiastically showed it to me and another friend, basically billing it as the greatest movie of all time. Suitably primed we proceeded to rip it to shreds, taking the mick out of everything. To this day I can't really remember the what happens in it other then to know the famous scenes that get referenced everywhere. Also I've tried to watch it since and just can't see past all of the problems which made it such an easy target to ruin.

Same for me...

It really can be a challenge to go back and watch an old movie, as they had a place in time and while some hold up, many simply do not. This can be the effects used at the time, what was going on in the world, etc.

I recall watching Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In as a kid and it was absolutely hilarious all the time. When it was on old reruns when I was an adult, everything fell flat as it was too topical for the time, over done in the current day and age, etc. I think movies can be the same way.

This is one of the reasons I’m glad I have a penchant for movie making history. Not a knowledge as such, just an interest and random facts in my head.

To see something from yesteryear, and see how it’s aged a bit poorly, but to see just how incredibly influential it was (even if the film itself was crap) is kinda cool to me. To find the source and origin of the trope. To see the potential other directors built on and in some cases managed to deliver.

Since others have mentioned them already.

I've never watched Jaws or The Shining and never will. Jaws just isn't intersting to me and while I like story of The Shining it veers into overly creepy for my tastes.

I watched The Exorcist and tried to watch Carpenter's The Thing at like 9/10. I'm never watching them again. I did look up the gore scenes from The Thing and they don't bother me as an adult. I've probably seen movies scarier than The Exorcist since...but childhood impressions are damning.

I've never seen Avatar (the movie). I don't get the appeal. I think it came out while I was at boot because I just completely missed that cultural event completely. The CGI is good, but I really, really dislike the design of the aliens. They're too elvish in a way.

Also, I'm not sure if I've ever watched The Terminator all the way through...I can picture moments from it clearly in my head, but not the resolution which makes me think I never really watched it. Same is true for the Rambo films after the first, which was excellent.

I watched Top Gun last Sunday for the first time in probably over 20 years (I was likely still at school and living at home).

I liked it. Far more exciting than I remembered. New one is way better though.

I first saw The Exorcist when I was an adult, and one not raised in a Christian/religious household. It made me laugh. The horror elements were all flat for me.

The Italian Job, it was always there running as a late night movie I'd occasionally flip the channel to for a few min while waiting for commercials for a different show to be over, but I've never watched the whole thing.

Same thing with Jurassic Park, I vaguely remember parts of if when I watched it when I was like 9 years old in school but I never finished it or saw the full movie since.

Voss wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Top Gun.

I've always hated it but when I was a kid it was on TV multiple times a year. Now that the sequel is out at theatres and had very high reviews I gave the original a chance, watching it entirely for the first time. But nope, it was even worse than I remembered. Wrong on every possible level.

Ha! I was going to go into Top Gun, but as I wrote it, it turned into a diatribe.
The sequel just baffles me... that it's somehow doing well... I'm entirely chalking it up to desperation for anything in theatres.

{shrugs} Great effects & entertaining enough. Also not facing any real competition for ticket sales.
That said?
Human portion of the plot is 100% predictable.
The mission? I've seen this before. In 1977. Involving X-Wings & a killer space station.... Still cool to see it done with F-18s though.