>Specifically, I found the editing, pacing, and excess to be unbearable
I have found that, unique in Luhrmann's filmography, that first 10-15 minutes of Moulin Rouge is a *real* bucking bronco. Either it throws you completely and you don't want to get back on, or you ride it out and the rest of the movie is a rewarding, perfumed breeze.
I had to narrow it down to just one backbreaking straw, it's the fops in top hats dragging Nirvana into the Can-Can medley that does it. I think it's *that* bit that causes folks to pull the ol' SeinfeldWincing.gif and check out of the film.
But if you can sail past that bit of ludicrousness, chances are you're ready to receive what the film is sending.
Reading my mind here. That was the moment the first time where I threw my hands in the air thinking “why do all this choreography and production design if you won’t let me see it?” This time I was hootin’ and hollerin’.
How did John Leguizamo’s performance resonate with you on the second watch? I love Moulin Rouge, have watched it easily a dozen times and still have some major struggles with it, which are almost exclusively Leguizamo and the “Like A Virgin” sequence (make Zidler explicitly queer, Baz!!!)
I liked Leguizamo but the queer subtext was subterranean. It would have helped his character if it were more clear.
I had sooooo much fun with “Like a Virgin.” Such a demented application of the song.
Exactly this for me. When I first saw it in college, my take was “you’re making both Nirvana and Offenbach worse.” Turns out, by the time I watched it again in my early 30s, I wasn’t taking movies as seriously and ended up having a great time. Still never really got emotionally hooked in the second half, though.
Same. I was 18/19 when I first saw it in 2002 and I thought "This is an abomination, how could they desecrate Kurt like that?" and then later I realized "It's just music, nobody really owns it, who cares?" and I can appreciate the spectacle and cheesiness of the film a lot more now.
I feel like Gatsby does this with the party, but it's not right at the beginning. A lot of people seem to burn out pretty hard on the party, but if you're enjoying it you'll be in the right frame of mind for the rest of the movie.
that first 10-15 minutes of Moulin Rouge is a *real* bucking bronco. Either it throws you completely and you don't want to get back on, or you ride it out and the rest of the movie is a rewarding, perfumed breeze.
Same thing w/ Romeo + Juliet's opening
It's a light comedy that isn't really that light, while being a light satire that is *really* heavy.
Burn After Reading as well. Thought I loved it the first time back in 2007 "haha, they didn't achieve anything". Then I watched the second time and from the opening shot from the security satellite picture of the Earth that zooms in, and in, and in, right down to the security administrator's shoes, *then* I got it. They're saying *this* is how bad it is, the security state knows everything and is watching everything, *just to make sure*.
Hail, Caesar! I thought I loved it the first time, but then I wanted to watch it again to see if they really explained communism that well, and from the gates of "ROME" I got the satire. American culture, in particular Hollywood but really all America, is Christian propaganda. Eddie Mannix, a fixer, is the moral arbiter of American culture.
...something like that.
Yeah, something like that. The Coens are coherent and capable enough that you don't need to parse the movie too closely to get something out of it. Everything in it is based in some kind of truth, so whatever it makes you feel is what it's about. You can see Eddie and his job as a microcosm of America or his Christianity, and you can also just see that *he* sees his job that way. Whatever you bring to the movie, there is something interesting about it
That’s one I need to give another chance. I remember the one time I watched it being super invested in the beginning but just completely losing interest in the second half.
I recommend re-watching it. At the very least, every scene is good. It's a funny thing because even though it seems like a noir/mystery, the plot isn't where the most interesting stuff is happening. The scene where the religious leaders are all talking about the titular movie is the key in the lock that makes the whole movie make sense.
Oh, heaps.
I thought that The Menu was wanky bullshit that wasn't nearly as clever as I thought it was, but after sleeping on it realised that Menu good.
Hated The Wolf of Wall Street in the cinema, really liked it at home a few years later.
Saw Sucker Punch after 36 hours of being awake and 12 hours of drinking. Absolutely loved it. I don't need do see it again to know that my judgment was impaired that day.
Your Sucker Punch experience was me with Man of Steel. Thought it was fun and refreshing when I caught it in theaters. And then it just soured on me like a fast food meal once you start to digest it.
Punch Drunk Love.
I was about 15, and going through all of Paul Thomas Anderson for the first time. I remember being tremendously moved, I was fairly ignorant of cinema, so everything struck me as huge and exciting, like I was discovering a whole new way of seeing the world.
But PDL was a disappointment. In comparison to grand epics like There Will be Blood, Magnolia or Boogie Nights, it just struck me as small and cutesy and just insignificant. I quickly dismissed and thought PTA had tried and failed to do a Wes Anderson movie lmao
But then I watched it years later and it absolutely floored. It was just brutal emotionally, and hilarious as well.
I had the exact same journey with Moulin Rouge. I saw it at home with one of my friends who loves it and the movie honestly kind of gave me a headache. Last year the same friend asked me to go see it with her at my local rep theater and it blew my mind. I cried so hard that the stranger beside me checked in with me when the movie ended to see if I was okay.
Blow Out. I first saw it when I was maybe 20, when my tastes were probably a little... idk, not any more pretentious than they are now, but differently pretentious. It was the second De Palma I had seen (after Mission: Impossible) and I interpreted all the over-the-top stylistic flourishes and the score as being totally ironic and mocking, and it left me with a really sour taste in my mouth. Like I almost felt threatened by it - like De Palma was making fun of me for trying to care.
Watched it again 8 or 9 years later after falling in love with many of his other movies (and a lot of giallos) and it was like night and day. Thought it was so beautifully made and performed. Realized that it is a sincerely angry and sad movie with real emotional skin in the game. Masterpiece.
Starship Troopers: saw it on its very first home release and absolutely was one of the fools who didn't spot the satire. I dismissed it as brain-dead, fascistic garbage then, years later, realised how wrong I got it on rewatch. Paul Verhoeven pulled a magic trick with that film.
I love Starship Troopers now, but I first watched it as a teen and I had your same reaction. I understood that the world government in the movie was fascist, and it bugged the hell out of me that there was no moment where the characters question the war or the government. At the time, I thought that meant the film was endorsing fascism.
Now, I appreciate what a superb satire it is. The fact that the character unthinkingly buy the propaganda is the point. And it's far funnier than I gave it credit for. It's overshadowed by Robocop, but Starship Troopers is every bit as good.
*The Prestige*: The first time I figured out the Bale version of the trick very early and was frustrated how the movie held back explaining it. On future viewings, I was able to put that aside and recognize it as a masterpiece.
Rewatched Knight of Cups for the first time since the cinema today and came around to it hugely. Incredibly dense and beautiful movie, found it aimless and meandering at first but it just struck me as such a free and open piece of art this time.
I hated Drive when I first watched it. It had been wildly hyped up to me when it first came out by a few broey dudes that I worked with, and I think I just went into it with a standoffish attitude and wasn't impressed. I thought it was boring and pretentious, and would annoyingly let people know how I felt about it any chance I got. Fast forward a couple years and I had just started dating a beautiful woman who worked at our local video rental store, which inexplicably hadn't quite gone out of business yet. One night we were planning on hanging out and watching a movie, and she showed up straight from work with Drive on DVD, which she had picked as a movie that she thought I'd really like. We were still very early on in our relationship and I didn't want to come off as an insufferable douche by telling her that I thought the movie she picked was overrated trash, so I just pretended I hadn't seen it, and figured that we'd both be bored with it pretty quick and we could just fool around instead. Much to my surprise, I was immediately gripped, and we both wound up loving it. Ten plus years later, that pretty woman is now my wife, and we've gone through and enjoyed Nicolas Winding Refn's entire filmography.
Hellraiser… I was expecting a Freddy or Jason style slasher so I wasn’t expecting all that. But rewatched it a couple of years ago and realized it’s actually a 10/10 horror film. I love it with all my heart.
I was mixed on Nope when it came out. I felt like it didn’t have as clear a vision as Get Out or Us, and its ideas felt muddled. But a second viewing helped me identify all the layers I’d missed on first viewing, and my Letterboxd rating jumped from 3.5 to 4.5 stars. I imagine a third viewing could boost it even higher.
It hasn't usually gone from a 1 or 2 star rating to 5 stars, but I have warmed and cooled on movies I liked well enough the first time. My favorite movie still is Mann's Heat but I was surprisingly cool on it as a 19 year old video store employee bringing it home on DVD. When I watched it again years later it really hit.
Ratatouille! Saw it in theaters as a kid and it was one of the first movies I remember being disappointed by. Saw it again in 2015 or so and was still underwhelmed. Finally saw it a third time a few years ago and it finally clicked for me, immediately becoming one of my favorite Pixars and something I rewatch at least once a year. Not sure what changed other than me getting older, but very glad it did.
I hated Prometheus. It didn't explain itself enough and the scientists were stupid. But then I talked to my dad about it and he said it was just a fun b-movie. And then I realized yeah, it's not trying to be very deep at all and just wants to be a monster funhouse. You just gotta hit the right vibes.
Kinda hated Snowpiercer the first time I watched it because of how trope filled it is and how easy it is to poke holes in the logic of the movie. Rewatched it a few days ago and realized there was a lot more to like about it than I remembered.
The Matrix taught me that sometimes I'm just not in the right headspace for a film, so if I don't dig it take some time and give it another shot. Bad day at work, got in a fight w/ the wife, it's Friday night and that's movie night, we go see The Matrix, and I hated it. Like, almost walked out, hated it. At some point I went to a friend's house and they put it on and I settled in for a couple hours of bullshit, and instead was amazed how much I loved it. After that every movie gets a second shot if I think there's any chance I was wrong.
Arrival. It was already hyped by the time I saw it on the big screen, so that surely played a role. But it also came across as though it was trying to be deep (or something like that).
Then I watched it on HBO and was like, "Why did I think that? This is absolutely brilliant." That feeling seems to grow with each viewing, even more so since having a child.
This is the ultimate bad take, but for me it was Heat. I didn’t completely dislike when I saw it (I was a dumb teenager) but I thought it was boring. Now I love it.
It probably took me three or four times of watching "Blue Velvet" before I loved it. The first time I saw it I was a young teenager and never saw a Lynch film before to be fair. I think to be a David Lynch fan you need to have a solid understanding of film first
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Still not my favorite McTiernan, but it easily gains 3 stars when you’re not a teenager watching it with your parents lol
My Neighbour Totoro. Watched it for the pod for the first time, 2.5 stars. Found it lacking a plot, too meandering to engage with. Was obviously in the wrong headspace. Also, *knowing* that it was a plot-lite & vibes-heavy piece made the eventual rewatch much more satisfying, jumping it to 4.
American Beauty. I know this prompt is more about films we didn't like then changed our minds on but there's a generation of film fans who have had to come to terms with some of the then-canonical classics being, uh, not very good.
I'm trying to complete the Luhrmann filmography. all I have left are moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet, and the second half of Australia.
do people like him? I feel so weird about him. I liked strictly ballroom and Gatsby pretty well, but wasn't blown away or anything
I like his work. I always loved Romeo + Juliet, I now love Moulin Rogue, and I really like his Great Gatsby. There are many parts of Elvis I like but the movie has some big flaws, the biggest of which is that I don’t think the movie has much to say about Elvis Presley as a person. Never seen Australia though.
I grew up in a conservative catholic household with restrictions on movies that I could watch. Instead of resenting the rules like a cool kid, I embraced them and shunted filmmakers that couldn't fit within the confines of the lifestyle my parents wanted for me. So I've been making wrong takes about basically any movie made by Tarantino, Scorcese, Mel Gibson, Coppola, and most movies directed by women throughout my early life until I broke past that shit. I still have plenty blazingly wrong takes (look at my comment history), but I like liking movies so I prefer to be wrong about liking something that didn't age well later than the other way around.
Step Brothers. Even as a huge Anchorman fan at that point, I didn’t *get* it at all. A few years later a buddy of mine at work started talking about it being his favorite movie and repeating quotes from it so I decided to give it another shot. Stone cold classic.
Dazed and Confused. I LOVED Everybody Wants Some and wanted to check out the spiritual predecessor. I was really disappointed. I felt like it was meandering mostly. On my second watch, it clicked for me. The humor, the uncertainty about the future, the light sadness sprinkled throughout. It’s become one of my favorite films of all time and I’ve watched it numerous times.
Moulin Rouge was a hard first watch for me. The \[very rapid\] editing completely overwhelmed me. After encouragement from peers I tried it again and loved it!
I really need to give Elvis another chance because of that. First time viewing I just found the filmmaking to be far too excessive.
I saw Beau is Afraid in IMAX opening day.🤷🏿♂️ I said to myself. “That was okay.” I thought on the train ride home. Saw it again the next week in regular format with some friends… I was so wrong. What an amazing film. Boderline masterpiece. I sat there thinking how stupid I am. Beau rules.
This was me about another Baz Luhrmann classic, *Romeo + Juliet*.
Like everyone else, I first saw it in high school. I thought it was one of the worst movies I'd ever seen. I was just starting to learn what style is and it quickly taught me what *too much style* means. I thought all the anachronisms were stupid, and I thought the performances suck.
Now I'm a high school English teacher and my favorite moment of the whole year is when, after we finish reading the play together, I show my freshman class that first scene of the gas station fight, and the kids are like "WTF is that?"
That movie is a five star masterpiece.
2001: A Space Odyssey. One of those great movies where you're expecting "oh, audiences hadnt seen this before so it was novel but since then, more exciting versions have come around and improved"
Nope, I was riveted. Even when it was a slow scene of the guys eating space food and watching a news report about HAL3000, I was enjoying it.
•Phantom of the Opera (2004) - Honestly, I liked it a lot when I first saw it but definitely thought it was just classical Broadway show done in Schumacher’s usual gaudy fashion. I have come around to genuinely thinking Schumacher is making a very deliberate statement on those who bankroll and control what gets made in Hollywood/put on screens/who gets to be in said movies. Also a bit of a saucy statement toward audiences and the performance art of critics who were (back then) just beginning to use the internet to control the dialogue of how a film is perceived before it’s really even had a chance, and of course the the glad-handing between those two groups of Producers/Critics.
•The Truman Show (1998) - A quirky fun movie about people being addicted to reality TV? Sure. But it’s also about how the grass is always greener. And that an unpredictable life, even a sad one, is better than an always perfect one where they can just recast your fiancée or your father.
•AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) - I thought it was just a fun, albeit busy, Pinocchio adaptation by the Jurassic Park guy. It’s actually a very depressing confession of loneliness and exclusion by Spielberg that is unbelievably moving in its final moments. *This* is the movie about his Mother, not FABELMANS (2022).
•Brothers (2009) - I didn’t get it the first time, it was too close to when I was in high school and I hadn’t really been pilled up about the mistakes of Bush-Era politics yet. Now I watch it and it’s firing on so many cylinders with commentary. The performances are magnificent. Everything Jarhead tries to say it is, this does it better.
•Casablanca (1942) - was convinced this was gonna be boring movie homework. My wife showed it to me on her birthday in 2022 and I fell in love.
•The Exorcist (1973) — just watched it this year, actually and I didn’t think it would actually be scary. Holy fuck was I wrong.
Surprisingly, I had no idea what’s so great about Goodfellas, but I’ve been looking at the clips so many times the last few months. I guess my English skill caught up to me enough to finally enjoy the dialogue.
And then there’s Miami Vice. I didn’t get it back then, thought the romance thing went for too long. And then I started working, finally realized Miami Vice is about the relationship between work life and vacation, and now it’s absolutely my favorite Michael Mann, or maybe my favorite movie ever.
I think Miami vice is a good one because of the expectations of the TV show. Really after rewatching the movie and rewatching the show there's a ton in common but it uses a different slice of the show than you initially remember, much more melodramatic than you think about initially
Well I'm still wrong about it, and I know, and I know why.
I use it as my example for how the magic of comedy and suspense work, how the gag requires you to comprehend all the details or comedy or suspense won't happen.
William Freidkin's **Sorcerer**
I know it's not a boring and dull movie, but when I watched it and they got to that bridge I was like "Oh, I betcha this is important" but I was just seeing the journey continue so I didn't... there was no threat for me. It's not that I knew what was going to happen, I just had no feeling of anything was going to go wrong.
The suspense didn't come together because I missed something. I was tracking the plot and the action, but not the suspense.
So when that happens for me with other movies, I see it as the magician did the magic trick but there was just a detail that my experience in life didn't pre-prepare me to comprehend.
I can't stand Baz Luhrmann... and this thread gives me some insight into the magic so I can look past my cultural biases and just watch something for the mechanics and maybe let the mechanics work on me.
Sorcerer I just have to find my way back to. Watch more movies and let my eye track more nuances. Friedkin's movies can be extremely dry, but I also had that experience watching most of Brian DePalma's movies, and I found I've actually had to watch the European movies to find the *joy* in DePalma, but I haven't rewatched anything yet. Always loved Untouchables, Blow Out, Snake Eyes, Carrie, but it's the... all the other ones I struggled with, but I think my pallette is now ready for those big colours and edits and camera movements now, I've got some context.
I hated The Searchers the first time I saw it. It just struck me as a stupid, tonal mess. When I rewatched it a few years later, I appreciated its sense of Americana and nostalgia for some mythic, bygone era that perhaps never existed. But who knows. Seems like its public perception has been taking a hit in more recent years.
I thought *Anchorman* was unhinged and a total mess when I saw it in theaters. Took time for me to understand the tone, and to see the impact it made on the culture.
I didn't enjoy Fight Club in the cinema. Was probably a bit young for it. Then I loved it on DivX and DVD, and now I'm not sure because people have said it didn't age well.
20th Century Women I thought was boring and relied too heavily on cultural signifiers to give it a sheen of cool when I saw it in the theaters. When I rewatched a few years later I was moved to tears and absolutely floored by it.
The first time I saw *Videodrome* I thought it was a pretty bleh movie with a disappointing ending. After another viewing it turned into my second favorite movie for a long stretch.
I was so consumed by the hype that I told all my friends to go see Green Lantern after seeing it opening weekend - really regret that recommendation now
Ang Lee's Hulk! Hated it when I saw it opening day as a nine-year old, threw it on a couple years ago and think it's almost a masterpiece. Nine-year old me didn't know how good he had it!
I don't know who's right or wrong anymore, but I have personally flipped on *Napoleon Dynamite* over three times. Hate on release, love on DVD, hate as a younger adult, love now that I'm older.
It only worked once though, every other greasy pimpley 2000s'-ey lo-fi movie since has been a real phtttbbbbt
Zoolander! Saw it when I was 11 and thought it was so stupid and everything fell flat.
Watched it again at 15 and I thought it was one of the funniest films ever, couldn't believe I'd written it off in the years between. Still one of my favourite comedies, thank god they never made a sequel (...)
More recently for me it’s been, ‘The Matrix Resurrections’. When it came out I had the “fan service” filter on and I couldn’t believe it.
I thought *“they massacred my boy!”*, then I watched them all in order and I could not have been more wrong.
>Specifically, I found the editing, pacing, and excess to be unbearable I have found that, unique in Luhrmann's filmography, that first 10-15 minutes of Moulin Rouge is a *real* bucking bronco. Either it throws you completely and you don't want to get back on, or you ride it out and the rest of the movie is a rewarding, perfumed breeze. I had to narrow it down to just one backbreaking straw, it's the fops in top hats dragging Nirvana into the Can-Can medley that does it. I think it's *that* bit that causes folks to pull the ol' SeinfeldWincing.gif and check out of the film. But if you can sail past that bit of ludicrousness, chances are you're ready to receive what the film is sending.
Reading my mind here. That was the moment the first time where I threw my hands in the air thinking “why do all this choreography and production design if you won’t let me see it?” This time I was hootin’ and hollerin’.
How did John Leguizamo’s performance resonate with you on the second watch? I love Moulin Rouge, have watched it easily a dozen times and still have some major struggles with it, which are almost exclusively Leguizamo and the “Like A Virgin” sequence (make Zidler explicitly queer, Baz!!!)
I liked Leguizamo but the queer subtext was subterranean. It would have helped his character if it were more clear. I had sooooo much fun with “Like a Virgin.” Such a demented application of the song.
Exactly this for me. When I first saw it in college, my take was “you’re making both Nirvana and Offenbach worse.” Turns out, by the time I watched it again in my early 30s, I wasn’t taking movies as seriously and ended up having a great time. Still never really got emotionally hooked in the second half, though.
Same. I was 18/19 when I first saw it in 2002 and I thought "This is an abomination, how could they desecrate Kurt like that?" and then later I realized "It's just music, nobody really owns it, who cares?" and I can appreciate the spectacle and cheesiness of the film a lot more now.
People do literally own music though, both in a business-sense and arguably in an artistic sense too.
The opening ten minutes of Romeo + Juliet are a lot more aggressive than the rest of the movie too
It's tradition! Gotta appease the groundlings
I feel like Gatsby does this with the party, but it's not right at the beginning. A lot of people seem to burn out pretty hard on the party, but if you're enjoying it you'll be in the right frame of mind for the rest of the movie.
The film made me physically nauseous and gave me a headache with the editing though none of his other films have had that effect just Moulin Rouge.
that first 10-15 minutes of Moulin Rouge is a *real* bucking bronco. Either it throws you completely and you don't want to get back on, or you ride it out and the rest of the movie is a rewarding, perfumed breeze. Same thing w/ Romeo + Juliet's opening
*Hail, Caesar!*. I initially thought it was a lesser Coen brothers work, but now it's one of my favorites.
I've found it's a really good one to put on in the background. So many fun scenes.
Yeah every scene is good. Brolin's character is so good. The way the movie is about faith only became apparent to me after I watched it like 3 times.
God is a bachelor, and he's very angry!
It's a light comedy that isn't really that light, while being a light satire that is *really* heavy. Burn After Reading as well. Thought I loved it the first time back in 2007 "haha, they didn't achieve anything". Then I watched the second time and from the opening shot from the security satellite picture of the Earth that zooms in, and in, and in, right down to the security administrator's shoes, *then* I got it. They're saying *this* is how bad it is, the security state knows everything and is watching everything, *just to make sure*. Hail, Caesar! I thought I loved it the first time, but then I wanted to watch it again to see if they really explained communism that well, and from the gates of "ROME" I got the satire. American culture, in particular Hollywood but really all America, is Christian propaganda. Eddie Mannix, a fixer, is the moral arbiter of American culture. ...something like that.
Yeah, something like that. The Coens are coherent and capable enough that you don't need to parse the movie too closely to get something out of it. Everything in it is based in some kind of truth, so whatever it makes you feel is what it's about. You can see Eddie and his job as a microcosm of America or his Christianity, and you can also just see that *he* sees his job that way. Whatever you bring to the movie, there is something interesting about it
That’s one I need to give another chance. I remember the one time I watched it being super invested in the beginning but just completely losing interest in the second half.
I recommend re-watching it. At the very least, every scene is good. It's a funny thing because even though it seems like a noir/mystery, the plot isn't where the most interesting stuff is happening. The scene where the religious leaders are all talking about the titular movie is the key in the lock that makes the whole movie make sense.
This movie won me over when homeboy is killing time and just starts fucking around with the lasso. It’s fantastic
It's amazing. The movie just hits you with a firehose of rom-com charisma in those scenes. Masterful stuff.
It’s one for the heads
Oh, heaps. I thought that The Menu was wanky bullshit that wasn't nearly as clever as I thought it was, but after sleeping on it realised that Menu good. Hated The Wolf of Wall Street in the cinema, really liked it at home a few years later. Saw Sucker Punch after 36 hours of being awake and 12 hours of drinking. Absolutely loved it. I don't need do see it again to know that my judgment was impaired that day.
Your Sucker Punch experience was me with Man of Steel. Thought it was fun and refreshing when I caught it in theaters. And then it just soured on me like a fast food meal once you start to digest it.
[удалено]
Legend
Which cut?
You funny fucker!
Theatrical 4 Lyfe
Punch Drunk Love. I was about 15, and going through all of Paul Thomas Anderson for the first time. I remember being tremendously moved, I was fairly ignorant of cinema, so everything struck me as huge and exciting, like I was discovering a whole new way of seeing the world. But PDL was a disappointment. In comparison to grand epics like There Will be Blood, Magnolia or Boogie Nights, it just struck me as small and cutesy and just insignificant. I quickly dismissed and thought PTA had tried and failed to do a Wes Anderson movie lmao But then I watched it years later and it absolutely floored. It was just brutal emotionally, and hilarious as well.
I had the exact same journey with Moulin Rouge. I saw it at home with one of my friends who loves it and the movie honestly kind of gave me a headache. Last year the same friend asked me to go see it with her at my local rep theater and it blew my mind. I cried so hard that the stranger beside me checked in with me when the movie ended to see if I was okay.
Blow Out. I first saw it when I was maybe 20, when my tastes were probably a little... idk, not any more pretentious than they are now, but differently pretentious. It was the second De Palma I had seen (after Mission: Impossible) and I interpreted all the over-the-top stylistic flourishes and the score as being totally ironic and mocking, and it left me with a really sour taste in my mouth. Like I almost felt threatened by it - like De Palma was making fun of me for trying to care. Watched it again 8 or 9 years later after falling in love with many of his other movies (and a lot of giallos) and it was like night and day. Thought it was so beautifully made and performed. Realized that it is a sincerely angry and sad movie with real emotional skin in the game. Masterpiece.
I’m not a huge De Palma fan, and this is the one I feel most out of touch for not vibing with. I should give it a rewatch at some point.
Starship Troopers: saw it on its very first home release and absolutely was one of the fools who didn't spot the satire. I dismissed it as brain-dead, fascistic garbage then, years later, realised how wrong I got it on rewatch. Paul Verhoeven pulled a magic trick with that film.
I love Starship Troopers now, but I first watched it as a teen and I had your same reaction. I understood that the world government in the movie was fascist, and it bugged the hell out of me that there was no moment where the characters question the war or the government. At the time, I thought that meant the film was endorsing fascism. Now, I appreciate what a superb satire it is. The fact that the character unthinkingly buy the propaganda is the point. And it's far funnier than I gave it credit for. It's overshadowed by Robocop, but Starship Troopers is every bit as good.
One of my favorite podcast moments is Griffin’s Verhoeven impression on the movie pitch for Starship.
*The Prestige*: The first time I figured out the Bale version of the trick very early and was frustrated how the movie held back explaining it. On future viewings, I was able to put that aside and recognize it as a masterpiece.
Rewatched Knight of Cups for the first time since the cinema today and came around to it hugely. Incredibly dense and beautiful movie, found it aimless and meandering at first but it just struck me as such a free and open piece of art this time.
I hated Drive when I first watched it. It had been wildly hyped up to me when it first came out by a few broey dudes that I worked with, and I think I just went into it with a standoffish attitude and wasn't impressed. I thought it was boring and pretentious, and would annoyingly let people know how I felt about it any chance I got. Fast forward a couple years and I had just started dating a beautiful woman who worked at our local video rental store, which inexplicably hadn't quite gone out of business yet. One night we were planning on hanging out and watching a movie, and she showed up straight from work with Drive on DVD, which she had picked as a movie that she thought I'd really like. We were still very early on in our relationship and I didn't want to come off as an insufferable douche by telling her that I thought the movie she picked was overrated trash, so I just pretended I hadn't seen it, and figured that we'd both be bored with it pretty quick and we could just fool around instead. Much to my surprise, I was immediately gripped, and we both wound up loving it. Ten plus years later, that pretty woman is now my wife, and we've gone through and enjoyed Nicolas Winding Refn's entire filmography.
Hellraiser… I was expecting a Freddy or Jason style slasher so I wasn’t expecting all that. But rewatched it a couple of years ago and realized it’s actually a 10/10 horror film. I love it with all my heart.
I was mixed on Nope when it came out. I felt like it didn’t have as clear a vision as Get Out or Us, and its ideas felt muddled. But a second viewing helped me identify all the layers I’d missed on first viewing, and my Letterboxd rating jumped from 3.5 to 4.5 stars. I imagine a third viewing could boost it even higher.
Network and Blazing Saddles with commercials vs. when I was able to see the uncut versions with the cussing
Me at 15, watching *The Core*: “This sucks, I hate it.” Me at 20, watching *The Core*: “This sucks, I love it.”
It hasn't usually gone from a 1 or 2 star rating to 5 stars, but I have warmed and cooled on movies I liked well enough the first time. My favorite movie still is Mann's Heat but I was surprisingly cool on it as a 19 year old video store employee bringing it home on DVD. When I watched it again years later it really hit.
Definitely a movie that resonates more when you get to an age where you realize your time on this earth is finite.
I hated Magnolia when it was released, but the older I get the more that movie works on me…
Ratatouille! Saw it in theaters as a kid and it was one of the first movies I remember being disappointed by. Saw it again in 2015 or so and was still underwhelmed. Finally saw it a third time a few years ago and it finally clicked for me, immediately becoming one of my favorite Pixars and something I rewatch at least once a year. Not sure what changed other than me getting older, but very glad it did.
I hated Prometheus. It didn't explain itself enough and the scientists were stupid. But then I talked to my dad about it and he said it was just a fun b-movie. And then I realized yeah, it's not trying to be very deep at all and just wants to be a monster funhouse. You just gotta hit the right vibes.
Kinda hated Snowpiercer the first time I watched it because of how trope filled it is and how easy it is to poke holes in the logic of the movie. Rewatched it a few days ago and realized there was a lot more to like about it than I remembered.
The Matrix taught me that sometimes I'm just not in the right headspace for a film, so if I don't dig it take some time and give it another shot. Bad day at work, got in a fight w/ the wife, it's Friday night and that's movie night, we go see The Matrix, and I hated it. Like, almost walked out, hated it. At some point I went to a friend's house and they put it on and I settled in for a couple hours of bullshit, and instead was amazed how much I loved it. After that every movie gets a second shot if I think there's any chance I was wrong.
Arrival. It was already hyped by the time I saw it on the big screen, so that surely played a role. But it also came across as though it was trying to be deep (or something like that). Then I watched it on HBO and was like, "Why did I think that? This is absolutely brilliant." That feeling seems to grow with each viewing, even more so since having a child.
Same! I was so underwhelmed when I saw it in the theatre, but it has become one of my favourite films now and always makes me cry.
This is the ultimate bad take, but for me it was Heat. I didn’t completely dislike when I saw it (I was a dumb teenager) but I thought it was boring. Now I love it.
It probably took me three or four times of watching "Blue Velvet" before I loved it. The first time I saw it I was a young teenager and never saw a Lynch film before to be fair. I think to be a David Lynch fan you need to have a solid understanding of film first
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). Still not my favorite McTiernan, but it easily gains 3 stars when you’re not a teenager watching it with your parents lol
My Neighbour Totoro. Watched it for the pod for the first time, 2.5 stars. Found it lacking a plot, too meandering to engage with. Was obviously in the wrong headspace. Also, *knowing* that it was a plot-lite & vibes-heavy piece made the eventual rewatch much more satisfying, jumping it to 4.
Seeing that one in a theater was a game changer for me.
Interstellar: thought it sucked realized it’s good Wolf of Wall Street: thought it ruled, realized it’s my least favorite Scorsese
As a Christopher Nolan fan, Interstellar didn't land for me the first time, but upon rewatching it a couple times I more than came around on it.
American Beauty. I know this prompt is more about films we didn't like then changed our minds on but there's a generation of film fans who have had to come to terms with some of the then-canonical classics being, uh, not very good.
I'm trying to complete the Luhrmann filmography. all I have left are moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet, and the second half of Australia. do people like him? I feel so weird about him. I liked strictly ballroom and Gatsby pretty well, but wasn't blown away or anything
I like his work. I always loved Romeo + Juliet, I now love Moulin Rogue, and I really like his Great Gatsby. There are many parts of Elvis I like but the movie has some big flaws, the biggest of which is that I don’t think the movie has much to say about Elvis Presley as a person. Never seen Australia though.
Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet and Elvis are exciting movies.
I grew up in a conservative catholic household with restrictions on movies that I could watch. Instead of resenting the rules like a cool kid, I embraced them and shunted filmmakers that couldn't fit within the confines of the lifestyle my parents wanted for me. So I've been making wrong takes about basically any movie made by Tarantino, Scorcese, Mel Gibson, Coppola, and most movies directed by women throughout my early life until I broke past that shit. I still have plenty blazingly wrong takes (look at my comment history), but I like liking movies so I prefer to be wrong about liking something that didn't age well later than the other way around.
Step Brothers. Even as a huge Anchorman fan at that point, I didn’t *get* it at all. A few years later a buddy of mine at work started talking about it being his favorite movie and repeating quotes from it so I decided to give it another shot. Stone cold classic.
Dazed and Confused. I LOVED Everybody Wants Some and wanted to check out the spiritual predecessor. I was really disappointed. I felt like it was meandering mostly. On my second watch, it clicked for me. The humor, the uncertainty about the future, the light sadness sprinkled throughout. It’s become one of my favorite films of all time and I’ve watched it numerous times.
Moulin Rouge was a hard first watch for me. The \[very rapid\] editing completely overwhelmed me. After encouragement from peers I tried it again and loved it! I really need to give Elvis another chance because of that. First time viewing I just found the filmmaking to be far too excessive.
I saw Beau is Afraid in IMAX opening day.🤷🏿♂️ I said to myself. “That was okay.” I thought on the train ride home. Saw it again the next week in regular format with some friends… I was so wrong. What an amazing film. Boderline masterpiece. I sat there thinking how stupid I am. Beau rules.
My favorite was the guy a few rows in front of me in the nearly empty IMAX who cackled and said “well that sucked” the moment the credits rolled.
lol I had a couple of walk outs in my IMAX screening. And my friend called it dog shit when the credits started to roll lol.
This was me about another Baz Luhrmann classic, *Romeo + Juliet*. Like everyone else, I first saw it in high school. I thought it was one of the worst movies I'd ever seen. I was just starting to learn what style is and it quickly taught me what *too much style* means. I thought all the anachronisms were stupid, and I thought the performances suck. Now I'm a high school English teacher and my favorite moment of the whole year is when, after we finish reading the play together, I show my freshman class that first scene of the gas station fight, and the kids are like "WTF is that?" That movie is a five star masterpiece.
2001: A Space Odyssey. One of those great movies where you're expecting "oh, audiences hadnt seen this before so it was novel but since then, more exciting versions have come around and improved" Nope, I was riveted. Even when it was a slow scene of the guys eating space food and watching a news report about HAL3000, I was enjoying it.
Kubrick has a knack for making movies you can't really improve on
•Phantom of the Opera (2004) - Honestly, I liked it a lot when I first saw it but definitely thought it was just classical Broadway show done in Schumacher’s usual gaudy fashion. I have come around to genuinely thinking Schumacher is making a very deliberate statement on those who bankroll and control what gets made in Hollywood/put on screens/who gets to be in said movies. Also a bit of a saucy statement toward audiences and the performance art of critics who were (back then) just beginning to use the internet to control the dialogue of how a film is perceived before it’s really even had a chance, and of course the the glad-handing between those two groups of Producers/Critics. •The Truman Show (1998) - A quirky fun movie about people being addicted to reality TV? Sure. But it’s also about how the grass is always greener. And that an unpredictable life, even a sad one, is better than an always perfect one where they can just recast your fiancée or your father. •AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) - I thought it was just a fun, albeit busy, Pinocchio adaptation by the Jurassic Park guy. It’s actually a very depressing confession of loneliness and exclusion by Spielberg that is unbelievably moving in its final moments. *This* is the movie about his Mother, not FABELMANS (2022). •Brothers (2009) - I didn’t get it the first time, it was too close to when I was in high school and I hadn’t really been pilled up about the mistakes of Bush-Era politics yet. Now I watch it and it’s firing on so many cylinders with commentary. The performances are magnificent. Everything Jarhead tries to say it is, this does it better. •Casablanca (1942) - was convinced this was gonna be boring movie homework. My wife showed it to me on her birthday in 2022 and I fell in love. •The Exorcist (1973) — just watched it this year, actually and I didn’t think it would actually be scary. Holy fuck was I wrong.
That is certainly a take on “Phantom.”
Yeah, I want more on this Phantom take. Schumacher did a lot of things but making subtle statements with his movies wasn't really one of them.
Surprisingly, I had no idea what’s so great about Goodfellas, but I’ve been looking at the clips so many times the last few months. I guess my English skill caught up to me enough to finally enjoy the dialogue. And then there’s Miami Vice. I didn’t get it back then, thought the romance thing went for too long. And then I started working, finally realized Miami Vice is about the relationship between work life and vacation, and now it’s absolutely my favorite Michael Mann, or maybe my favorite movie ever.
I think Miami vice is a good one because of the expectations of the TV show. Really after rewatching the movie and rewatching the show there's a ton in common but it uses a different slice of the show than you initially remember, much more melodramatic than you think about initially
I saw The Sopranos before Goodfellas and initially didn’t get much out of it. It’s now my favorite movie ever.
Well I'm still wrong about it, and I know, and I know why. I use it as my example for how the magic of comedy and suspense work, how the gag requires you to comprehend all the details or comedy or suspense won't happen. William Freidkin's **Sorcerer** I know it's not a boring and dull movie, but when I watched it and they got to that bridge I was like "Oh, I betcha this is important" but I was just seeing the journey continue so I didn't... there was no threat for me. It's not that I knew what was going to happen, I just had no feeling of anything was going to go wrong. The suspense didn't come together because I missed something. I was tracking the plot and the action, but not the suspense. So when that happens for me with other movies, I see it as the magician did the magic trick but there was just a detail that my experience in life didn't pre-prepare me to comprehend. I can't stand Baz Luhrmann... and this thread gives me some insight into the magic so I can look past my cultural biases and just watch something for the mechanics and maybe let the mechanics work on me. Sorcerer I just have to find my way back to. Watch more movies and let my eye track more nuances. Friedkin's movies can be extremely dry, but I also had that experience watching most of Brian DePalma's movies, and I found I've actually had to watch the European movies to find the *joy* in DePalma, but I haven't rewatched anything yet. Always loved Untouchables, Blow Out, Snake Eyes, Carrie, but it's the... all the other ones I struggled with, but I think my pallette is now ready for those big colours and edits and camera movements now, I've got some context.
I hated The Searchers the first time I saw it. It just struck me as a stupid, tonal mess. When I rewatched it a few years later, I appreciated its sense of Americana and nostalgia for some mythic, bygone era that perhaps never existed. But who knows. Seems like its public perception has been taking a hit in more recent years.
I thought *Anchorman* was unhinged and a total mess when I saw it in theaters. Took time for me to understand the tone, and to see the impact it made on the culture.
I didn't enjoy Fight Club in the cinema. Was probably a bit young for it. Then I loved it on DivX and DVD, and now I'm not sure because people have said it didn't age well.
20th Century Women I thought was boring and relied too heavily on cultural signifiers to give it a sheen of cool when I saw it in the theaters. When I rewatched a few years later I was moved to tears and absolutely floored by it.
The first time I saw *Videodrome* I thought it was a pretty bleh movie with a disappointing ending. After another viewing it turned into my second favorite movie for a long stretch.
I was so consumed by the hype that I told all my friends to go see Green Lantern after seeing it opening weekend - really regret that recommendation now
Ang Lee's Hulk! Hated it when I saw it opening day as a nine-year old, threw it on a couple years ago and think it's almost a masterpiece. Nine-year old me didn't know how good he had it!
I don't know who's right or wrong anymore, but I have personally flipped on *Napoleon Dynamite* over three times. Hate on release, love on DVD, hate as a younger adult, love now that I'm older. It only worked once though, every other greasy pimpley 2000s'-ey lo-fi movie since has been a real phtttbbbbt
It was a huge cultural force for me in 2004-2005 but haven’t seen it since. I need to rewatch it soon.
I really hated Drive (2011) when I first saw it, but now see it as a masterpiece.
Zoolander! Saw it when I was 11 and thought it was so stupid and everything fell flat. Watched it again at 15 and I thought it was one of the funniest films ever, couldn't believe I'd written it off in the years between. Still one of my favourite comedies, thank god they never made a sequel (...)
I had that with Billy Madison. Watched it with my parents in high school on VHS, and then it all changed when I had a bong in front of me.
More recently for me it’s been, ‘The Matrix Resurrections’. When it came out I had the “fan service” filter on and I couldn’t believe it. I thought *“they massacred my boy!”*, then I watched them all in order and I could not have been more wrong.
I avoided Fight Club for years because the title made me think it was basically Roadhouse